Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction: Hugh Hewitt Creates a New Verb

On his radio show this afternoon Hugh Hewitt created a new verb. In response to a question concerning ABC's upcoming miniseries, "The Path to 9/11," Hugh responded that, since he had the pre-airing review copy of the show, if anyone claimed that there had been a last-second, substantive editing change "I will be able to truth it." Hugh repeated this phrase at least one more time during that segment of his show.

Curious about the use of the word "truth" as a verb I went to Google and typed in, "I will be able to truth it." Nothing. Then I tried, "I will truth it." Nothing again. Then, "I truth." Yet again, nothing. And lastly, "I truth you truth we truth." Still nothing.

I therefore conclude and declare that Hugh Hewitt, on September 3, 2006, did create and express a new English language verb: "Truth"

I suppose we might wish to lay out the general form of grammar for this new verb as follows:

I truth
You truth
We truth

He/She truths
You truth
They truth

That would cover the present active tense of the verb but there are, of course, other forms to consider. For example:

Past Tense = "I truthed"

Future Pefect (active) = "will have truthed"

Future Perfect (passive) = "will have been truthed"

Past Progressive = "was being truthed"

And we must not forget the adverb that also comes into play. Fortunately, Jesus and the KJV of the Bible have already provided this one for us:

"Truly"

Thankfully this helps us to avoid the more awkward form, "Truthly." As in, "Truthly, truthly I say unto you . . ."

Of course the word can still be used as a noun but, thanks to Hugh, we may now feel free to write sentences such as the following:

"During deliberations, the jury, following the instructions of the judge, spent several hours truthing the evidence presented by the prosecutor."

"We hold these truths to be self-evident. That among them are lifeing, libertying and the pursuit of happinessing."

"I promise to truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

And, of course, Jesus offers us the final word:

"You will truth the truth; and the truth that you have truthed will set you free!"

Now that all has been said and done there is nothing left to do . . . except to submit this new usage to the editors of the OED!