149 - Oids

I heard it again today, the word “factoid,” which doesn’t really mean what folks think it does - it’s somewhat of a schizoid word, which is a more appropriate use of the suffix ‘oid, meaning “resembling, or like.” Schizoid would mean like schizophrenia just as hemorrhoid is like a hemorrhage, etc.

That the nursery rhyme “Humpty Dumpty” never once identifies the protagonist of the poem as an egg, and, in fact, it’s actually referring to a famous cannon perched on the top of the tower of St. Mary’s and used during the English Civil war, isn’t really a factoid, it’s trivia, aka, a fact.

Don’t ask me about meteoroids or asteroids though.