Then, as though by extrasensory perception, I started hearing sentences she hadn’t actually said. I felt a small thrill of fear. I knew for a pluperfect fact she was going to drop a bomb. - Sue Grafton (T Is for Trespass)
I knew the term pluperfect from taking Latin in high school, but Random House says there is a second definition - "more than perfect". Is there a word or phrase that means "even more perfect than pluperfect"? How truthy is a mere fact, not a perfect fact nor a pluperfect fact, but an ordinary run-of-the-mill factual fact? And where do true facts, actual facts and scientific facts fit on the truthiness index?
I can not answer all of your questions and I will not try. But roll this around in your head: Some facts are not true facts.
I think you're taking Sue Grafton a bit too seriously. She's doing entertainment, not epistemology.
Some facts are not true facts.
Obviously. It's a shame that our language lacks a word that means facts that actually are facts, and for perfection that us truly perfect. (BTW, I think Rupert Murdoch has trademarked that phrase.)
I think you're taking Sue Grafton a bit too seriously. She's doing entertainment, not epistemology.
She's no Rex Stout, but just as Wolfe has Fritz preparing odd dishes, Kinsey has Rosie doing the same, although in T is fir Trouble, Rosie makes quail in tomatillo-chile sauce, a Mexican dish that seems odd coming from a Hungarian cook. and Kinsey shops for a rutabaga requested by her the Mexican identity thief neighbor. (Made me hungry for neeps and tatties, which I haven't had since the 1970s.)
Grafton seems to be quite literate, but in order to maintain a suspension of disbelief, Kinsey Milhone, who narrates the stories has to sound like someone who became a cop because she couldn't hack college and then became a private eye because she couldn't hack the police bureaucracy for long, finally going out on her own because she was so independent, and not even able to maintain a relationship with the insurance company that housed her office. What I was throwing a conniption fit about was Random House's definition of pluperfect, although I strongly suspect the lexicographers and editors involved are as incensed as I am at the concept of a perfecter perfect. What can they do? They don't invent the language any more than weathermen invent tornadoes.
Refresh my memory: how is it that something can be a fact and not be true? I've encountered several discussions of this question, but can't seem to wrap my brain around it.