Language expert William Safire in his On Language column advocated the use of the word factlet to express a "little bit of arcana". Factlet would be an alternative word for factoid. A factoid is a questionable or spurious—unverified, incorrect, or fabricated—statement presented as a fact, but with no veracity. The word factoid is also sometimes used to mean a small piece of true but valueless or insignificant information, which is in contrast to the original definition. As a result of confusion over the meaning of factoid, some English-language style and usage guides recommend against its use.
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