French word of the day: Intox
This is not fake news. Or, maybe it is?
Why do I need to know intox?
Because it is the traditional French identifier for malignant and deliberately misleading messaging. Think hoax, or perhaps propaganda, and you won’t be far wrong.
What does it mean?
Intox - pronounced ahn-tox - is a diminutive of the word intoxication (pronounced in-tocs-i-cass-yon), which means what you’d expect with respect to drink and drugs.
It is more often used these days to describe the spreading of biased or misleading information and falsehoods packaged as fact.
Because of its etymological links to the word intoxication, it reveals how ‘fake news’ can poison minds in a poetic - and very French - manner.
These days, it is commonly used in connection with and opposition to the word info (a diminutive of information, or fact), after the early 1990s TV show Double Jeu introduced a segment separating real and fake information called Info? Intox?
Crucially, it is not necessarily fake news in the media sense, which is a very specific form of the catch-all term intox.
The French for that is infox - an amalgamation of info and intox - which describes, as we explain here, misinformation spread by media or social networks in order to influence public opinion.
You will also hear the English term 'fake news' used quite often as well in regards to media reporting, despite official efforts to push the French version.
Use it like this
Info ou intox? Fact or fake?
Une campagne d’intox a été lancée - A campaign of misinformation has been launched
Les affirmations selon lesquelles les villes de 15 minutes sont une forme de contrôle de la population sont intox - Claims that 15-minute cities are a form of population control are falsehoods
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Why do I need to know intox?
Because it is the traditional French identifier for malignant and deliberately misleading messaging. Think hoax, or perhaps propaganda, and you won’t be far wrong.
What does it mean?
Intox - pronounced ahn-tox - is a diminutive of the word intoxication (pronounced in-tocs-i-cass-yon), which means what you’d expect with respect to drink and drugs.
It is more often used these days to describe the spreading of biased or misleading information and falsehoods packaged as fact.
Because of its etymological links to the word intoxication, it reveals how ‘fake news’ can poison minds in a poetic - and very French - manner.
These days, it is commonly used in connection with and opposition to the word info (a diminutive of information, or fact), after the early 1990s TV show Double Jeu introduced a segment separating real and fake information called Info? Intox?
Crucially, it is not necessarily fake news in the media sense, which is a very specific form of the catch-all term intox.
The French for that is infox - an amalgamation of info and intox - which describes, as we explain here, misinformation spread by media or social networks in order to influence public opinion.
You will also hear the English term 'fake news' used quite often as well in regards to media reporting, despite official efforts to push the French version.
Use it like this
Info ou intox? Fact or fake?
Une campagne d’intox a été lancée - A campaign of misinformation has been launched
Les affirmations selon lesquelles les villes de 15 minutes sont une forme de contrôle de la population sont intox - Claims that 15-minute cities are a form of population control are falsehoods
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