Wednesday, April 28, 2010

nontroversy

nontroversy (or non-troversy) = non + controversy

Nontroversy is one of those perfect portmanteaus because it is only one letter off from the word it mimics. A nontroversy is a news story that is raised as being controversial, though it really isn't. A nontroversy is, by definition, nontroversial.

As Mark Peters puts it on his Wordtastic blog, nontroversy is "A useful word for the proliferation of useless stories."

An example, from Twitter's @cynicaldragon:

nothing liked a whipped up non-troversy to get the twitterati chattering #bigotgate

You can find a more evidence of nontroversy in the wild over at Word Spy.