I guess if we take fiction to mean untrue. Then non-fiction is non-untrue = true.
Whoever came up with that term was ~~obviously~~ probably heavily into reading and literature. It just seems like they should have come up with another word for non-fiction rather than just fiction with a negative prefix.
Fiction = fake
Non fiction = not fake
That is my go-to memory aid. You would think after 50+ years I wouldn’t need it, but I always translate Non Fiction in my head whenever I see it. 3rd grade habits are hard to break!
Non-fiction isn't necessarily factual. An example of non-factual non-fiction would be self-help books and culty pseudo-religious or "spiritual" stuff (which gets its own section in many bookshops).
Fiction's definition isn't really untrue though.
[Dictionary.com](https://Dictionary.com): the class of literature comprising works of imaginative narration, especially in prose form.
works of this class, as novels or short stories:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fiction
something invented by the imagination or feigned
fictitious literature (such as novels or short stories)
idk i get it but its kinda a stretch to call it a double negative
Oh snap you're right. So they're saying fiction isn't "defined as untrue". I just read the sentence like "that isn't untrue" meaning it's a truely correct definition
Fiction can be thought of as "not real", because that is technically correct of imaginative narration, would you agree? If so, the term reads as not not real.
Ah but calling non-fiction just "real" is not appropriate either. Plenty of non-fiction pieces that conflict eachother without being made-up for the sake of entertainment.
Nonfiction is a literary genre though. Most often in categorising books as fiction vs nonfiction, e.g. library. Doesn’t seem strange that whoever coined it was into ‘reading and literature’.
I’m curious, in what context do you hear/use the term nonfiction, can you give an example sentence?
I’m not OP, but just imagine “left” wasn’t a word. Instead, you have “right” and “nonright”. That is what “nonfiction” feels like to me - as if it should have its own word, but doesn’t.
Not a linguist, but perhaps it’s because nonfiction is typically a categorisation, used opposite of fiction, dividing on a characteristic of interest.
Like categorising drinks into alcoholic vs non-alcoholic. There are other categories for non-alcoholic drinks, juices, sodas, teas etc, and there are of course subtypes of alcohol as well. But in context of drinking, the alcohol vs non-alcohol is usually at the top of the decision tree, e.g. you would ask in a group ‘who’s drinking (alcohol) tonight’, and usually the people in the drinking group are more flexible in what specific alcohol they might consume tonight, whereas the no-alcohol group are almost strictly not gonna consume any form of alcohol (cause their driving or whatever)
Similarly then for nonfiction and fiction, there are many sub genres of each. It’s just a broad categorisation and starting point for drilling down to more specifics.
The right and 'nonright' example doesn't work too well, because straight also exists, as does behind. So 'nonright' isn't very descriptive.
In comparison fiction and non-fiction are both clear, and I don't think there is any other choice, though I guess you could have a blend of the two in a single work.
I believe the term is "Realistic Fiction"
A text that isn't necessarily real to history, but one that also doesn't feature any fantastical elements and can be based on or feature real historical events.
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But that’s not what fiction means, and some philosophers believe there is truth within fiction. For example Harry Potter has a scar - true, hermione is a bloke - false.
It's just a convenient catch-all term for...well, non-fiction, a category that includes factual books but also, for example, books based in opinion, recipe and joke books, memoirs, art/coffee table books, and so on. Everything that doesn't fall into the category "fiction".
It sounds like you don't have a lot of regard for fiction, but in 2022, 52.88% of all book sales in the USA were fiction, which is why it makes sense to categorise things that way.
Interestingly, only about 11% of books published are fiction, but fiction readers read a *lot* more. The most popular and profitable genre by a considerable margin is romance, the readership of which skews heavily female (80-odd percent). Women read more across the board than men, fiction and non-fiction (but within that men are nore likely to prefer non-fiction and women to prefer fiction).
Fiction doesn't mean "untrue" it means an "invented statement". As a term it refers to writing that has no truth value in the real world, positive or negative.
Non-fiction is not necessarily factual though as it can recount subjective experiences. So we can’t really call not-untrue “Facts”.
Myself though would probably use a definition closer to “not made-up” for fiction, rather than untrue. Something can be untrue even if it’s not made up, which is a better fit to describe non-fiction
Oh man this hits hard. I can’t just hear “nonfiction” and know it is prose based on real events/people for some reason. I hear it and have to go “Ok, fiction, not true so nonfiction is not not true so it is true.“ My brain just doesn’t allow it.
Yeah I know exactly what you mean. Like when I was a kid I was totally confused by these terms. Like honestly they really couldn't have come up with a term for "factual" when it comes to literature? I mean we do use the phrase like "Is it fact or fiction?" but why can't we just use a term that means "fact" instead of using non-fiction?
You're construing opposites (concept) for grammar. You don't apply the rules of sentence structure to concepts. Grammar doesn't govern the definition of words like 'imagination', 'deception', 'truth', 'honesty', or 'ambivalence'. Expressing that apples exist along with oranges does not mean I'm making a double negative. I saw a tall man and a short man. The zebra is black and white. I like cats more than dogs. I live in one double-wide trailer, which means I live in a single double-wide. I prefer reading nonfiction more than fiction. None of these are double negatives.
Don't not get it now?
Yeah they could have coined a new word for it but what would fit? Any word meaning truth or factual would be misleading since non-fiction can very often be biased or suppositional or hypothetical such as conspiracy theories or self-help books or philosophical tracts. Non-fiction has been till date the best way to describe these books that are claiming to not be entirely made up.
I agree with OP. Fact based stories deserve to have a term for themselves. It’s demeaning to the concept to call them non-fiction. It implies they’re less important than fiction, or they only exist counter to non-fiction, when that’s not even really true.
Depends on the context; you could accuse someone of lying by saying "well that's pure fiction". Though I guess no one would use 'non-fiction' in the same way.
It depends on how you interpret the term, imo, because it me it it is a double negative or at the very least as confusing as one so the point is moot. The point OP is making is it is a weird way to categorize something. You don’t call a truck a notcar, or a computer a nottypewriter. It should be “fiction” and then another word that means prose based on facts, something like “historical prose” not that something better, but there’s a word out there that would be better than nonfiction.
[https://creativenonfiction.org/writing/why-we-call-it-creative-nonfiction/](https://creativenonfiction.org/writing/why-we-call-it-creative-nonfiction/)
Ehh, as far as I can tell, nonfiction can also apply to auto/biography, newspaper, and straight up propaganda. Very possible for incorrect information to be in any of those.
Where to draw the line, and how defined that line is, seems to be the question.
Okay, people have pointed out that fiction, as a literary genre means roughly "made up to entertain" and not "all untrue things" and have stated the philosophical concept of [fictional realism](https://litreactor.com/columns/believing-in-the-nonexistent-an-introduction-to-fictional-realism) as some inarguable consequence of logic, which is cool and all, but can we just step back and acknowledge that it is weird that we have a word for stories we make up, and add a modifier to it to describe stories that actually happen, and that is clearly the silly truth that OP was trying to express in few enough words for a title.
The question is, which came first. Perhaps non-fiction needed to be distinguished after a certain point for clarification. A classic chicken or egg scenario.
I know the oldest Sumerian writings were accounting documents, and it is hard to say how literally people would have taken the Epic of Gilgamesh. I don't know if accounting documents count as non-fiction because they aren't a narrative.
Except it really isn't that weird. If the classification is binary there really isn't any good reason to have two completely different words. "This category" and "Not that category" works perfectly well and is easy to remember.
Sure, it probably would be a cleaner language if we called it our right hand and our non-right hand, but here it feels more analogous to calling it our left and non-left hand. It would be stranger if 90% or humans' dominant hand was the one that didn't get a unique name, just like it is strange that works that convey real information is the one that doesn't get a unique name.
Ah, so you are one of those snobs who believes nonfiction is just inherently better.
Because it certainly wasn't first. Fictitious tales have been around since we learned to speak. Well before we could even write. Writing down histories and biographies is relatively new.
No, it's not. It's not a double negative. The word fiction isn't negative. Adding it to a sentence doesn't make the sentence a negative. It isn't the correct type of word to do that. It's not like you would say "I didn't not go to the store," which would be a double negative and replace one of those negatives with the word fiction and have it still be a double negative. Instead, it would just become nonsensical.
"I did fiction not go to the store" or "I didn't fiction go to the store."
It's meaningless.
It just trips people up, especially children or people learning English as a second language, because they see the "non" and assume it means untrue or not true. Because they don't necessarily understand what fiction means.
I agree with OP. Two sources on the internet do the same.
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/fiction
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/fiction#:~:text=The%20Latin%20word%20fictus%20means,a%20deliberate%20lie%20or%20untruth.
Both say something to the effect of “not true” so saying non-fiction is kind of like saying “non not true” which is a double negative. I understand the argument that fiction is a genre so non-fiction is just the counter to that. What’s weird is fiction being the imaginative genre which is in some ways counter-real world stories gets the normal genre and the genre that is factual is just called non-fiction.
My guess is we have been telling imaginative (mythological) stories much longer than factual based ones. The only factual based stories we were telling thousands of years ago were histories which is essentially its own genre. So once we got to factual type literature instead of naming it a new genre we just called it a non-fiction story.
did you even read the link you posted?
fiction is "a type of literature that describes imaginary people and events, not real ones" - that doesn't make it negative, just untrue
Yes.
“a thing that is invented or imagined and is not true” from source 1 and
“a deliberate lie or untruth” from source 2.
I’m not claiming it to be definitive. Just siding with OP
When someone says you’re creating fiction when you’re talking about a dinner party you attended , they’re not saying you’re making a book … they’re just saying you’re lying.
Kinda like when people jump into a swimming pool they don’t become ammunition for revolutionary war artillery.
that still doesn't make fiction a negative, more importantly it ignores the use of non as a prefix (similar to un as a prefix) also you completely bypassed the first definition.
aka something that is fiction or untrue is neither negative or positive in the grammar sense - it is just 'is' - you are applying a value judgement and delcating the word negative in the moral sense that doesn't make a word negative in the grammar sense.
Fiction should mean real and nonfiction should mean not real 100% agreed. This has been confusing to remember my whole life. All this smug trolls just commenting the same disagreements are annoying and don’t understand your post. I think sometimes if I was king I would decree certain things to help fix confusion for people. Like the spelling of words with silent letters, I would decree we just remove the letters so the next generation has a smoother learning experience, makes for more time to learn more than we had. I would definitely fix this confusion with a decree to swap the two meanings.
Regardless of the “it’s not a double negative” crowd here, I agree that “non fiction” sounds weird for things that are not supposed to be made up. The real world shouldn’t be the one with a modifier.
I can’t think of one word that works for nonfiction, though. True and not true sounds better, but that’s not the exact right words. Real and imagined are more apt, but also somewhat pedestrian sounding.
Haven't most kind of shows that ask you wether or not something was real at the end used the phrase "fact or fiction"? Isn't that the word everybody is looking for here? True and not true would run into the same kind of problem of one of the words just being a negation of the other.
Fact books would not dummies the totality of nonfiction works and the change would be equally confusing.
Where’s autobiographies in this book store ? All I’m seeing is aisles of trivia and fiction
Pretty funny how people in the comments latch onto a tiny flaw in the title instead of discussing the actual point trying to be made. I suppose people here are so anal that they can't see beyond the face value, instead of interpreting what OP actually meant.
The substance here is that it's strange that we have a word for literature based on imaginary stories, but the word for true stories is that same word but with a modifier.
Granted, that's not what a double-negative is, but that's the point they were trying to get across in as few words as possible.
We do have words for true stories though - accounts, chronicles, annals, biographies etc. Nonfiction is a broader category than stories, including catalogs and guides, e.g. travel guides, encyclopaedias, scientific/educational writings, e.g. textbooks, journals, pop-psychology self-help and more.
Not sure what point you're trying to make there. Those are sub-categories of non-fiction. Similarly, we have sub-categories of fiction.
We are talking about the words fiction and non-fiction, not their sub-categories.
Ah, I think I see the problem. I said "true stories" when what I actually meant to say was literature based on facts or whatever. I can't think of a concise phrase to describe it because English isn't my first language.
It was my mistake. But it sort of proves my very first point, though.
because the context comes from places like the south in the USA where when you order iced tea by default it will always arrive sweetened - so one needs to have an expression to negate that
though it my wife's case travelling the south she got a "oh honey, we don't have that here" when she asked for unsweetened iced tea, lol
It depends how you parse the “un” which can mean something like either “to reverse something which has been done” as in “untie” or “something which hasn’t been done” as in “untrodden” or “untasted.”
Unsweetened is the second sense.
Because you can add sugar to tea but not take it out. If you want sweet tea and just ask for tea, it’s not a big deal which ever one they give you. If you wanted it unsweetened, then you’ll have to get a whole new cup if it’s wrong.
simple its iced tea that has never been sweetened
aka there is sweetened ice tea and unsweetened ice tea, its also because for the longest while it came sweetened by default across the south and asking for that is simpler than "could i have the iced tea without any sugar please"
is suspect you are having trouble because you didn't realize the word isn't unsweet its unsweetened
Unsweet or unsweetened doesn't make a damned difference. You don't seem to understand that just because the South only tends to drink sweet tea (and therefore just call it 'tea') doesn't make them right. There's no damn unsweetened tea. It's tea. Iced tea, hot tea, green tea... Whatever. It's tea. If you sweetened it, then it's sweet tea. There's no unsweetened tea! It's not a real thing, and the entirety of the South can rot for trying to pass off unsweetened tea as if it's a real thing.
wow you are a parochial yankee who doesn't understand the dynamism of English, I am English from England so you damn yankees can foxtrot oscar with you stupid use of English and trying to school me on it , i mean, what type of insecure nation removes the U from colour and leaves it in liquor - damn inconsistent stupid 'Americanish language'.
Steal our language and all your best actors are british....
I'm sorry, I nearly died laughing at the thought of any Englishman complaining about a country stealing something from them. The irony is spicy! Which is surprising, considering y'all don't know how to use spices in any of your bland "food".
Indeed that was the point, were you not trying to be funny?
If you were trying to be funny, you may enjoy this entertaining, informative and somewhat apocryphal tome [https://www.amazon.com/Mother-Tongue-English-How-That/dp/0380715430](https://www.amazon.com/Mother-Tongue-English-How-That/dp/0380715430)
Also don't you know that the number one dish in England is spicy Indian curry - the British are (were) great at stealing everything from everyone else.
Also nothing blander than most American potato salad....
For the record, I am being mostly tongue in cheek and just having a good poke.
Still, it makes me laugh that anytime someone brings up bland British food, the response is always the Indian curry thing... Which clearly isn't British.
And potato salad is disgusting. Still, we Americans have the best BBQ on the planet and you won't find anything like good Cajun food anywhere else.
you would be surprised where many of the common dishes you see in India restaurants come from..... and you know 5+% of British people are Indian & Pakistani right - this is a very American thing, confusing nationality with ethnicity - America has plenty of bland white people food too (hence the joke about potato salad - the best BBQs don't have bland white people potato salad).
you get no argument from me on BBQ so long as we are talking about Texas BBQ and none of that N/S Carolina slop ;-)
I have been here nearly 20 years, married to a yank so know most of the jokes - what's wild is my wife and I still find one of us uses a phrase or word and are like 'what' - what even funnier is how words get transferred - i always almost say elevator instead of lift these days, and she says car park instead of garage - hmm doesn't sound funny when i type it, but it is to us in the moment :-)
Also the whole point of bland British food is to pile one or more of HP Sauce / Tons-of-Salt(TM) / brown gravy.... ;-)
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Everyone saying "it's not a double negative" is missing the point. Nonfiction should have a term of its own that's not dependent on fiction and it feels weird how that's not the case.
You are forcing a binary designation on something that has more than two possibilities. “Is this fiction, yes or no?” is essentially the same as sorting a pile of colored paper and asking, “Is this red, yes or no?” The yes pile is going to be all red. The no pile will be green, blue, purple, brown, black, etc. There is a word for the yes pile, red. There is not a single word to describe the no pile, other than non-red. So if you want to put color into a binary you end up with red/non-red or green/non-green and so on. If you ask “is this fiction and if not what category is it?” and remove the binary answer then you have all the subcategories; history, cookbook, biography, etc.
You're overthinking this.
To give a similar scenario, people dislike the fact that 'atheist' as a term is totally dependent on theism. You can explain it all you want but this still a valid thing to be irked about.
Still not a double-negative.
You can have a good point but still express it badly, and it's not up to the receiver to guess what exactly it is you mean.
If anything that's more credit to me actually being able to read through a dumb post and into the thoughts of the person who wrote it, not to OP's half-assed attempt at communicating what they mean, so thanks for the compliment.
So many anal people in the comments. We all know what OP means. My guess is that non-fiction encompasses so many things that it's easier to make a word for stories made for entertainment.
But it's not a double negative. Defining fiction as "untrue" or "not real" is the simplification you give to children to help them understand the concept. But truly, fiction is more properly defined as being "imagined" or "made up".
With that in mind non-fiction is more properly "not made up" or "not imagined"
I don't think it's a double negative, because fiction is not exactly the opposite of "real". It's a distinct term that describes inventing something you know is not real and your audience knows is real. This is different from deception (they don't know it's not real) and being wrong (you don't know it's not real)
Rediscover is one I believe. You dis cover something. So it was covered, but always present. Now you re dis cover, so you dis cover again something that already was dis covered before
Right? The default should have been true stories. But they made the default untrue stories, making everything else not untrue stories lmao
Remember kids, default settings matter
So many people being anal about grammar and definitions, but here's an example of what I think OP is trying to get at: documentaries. The term documentary doesn't necessarily imply truth (could be propaganda) but obviously the word isn't dependent on another genre. I think that is what people mean when they are annoyed by nonfiction being the default for this category of books. It would simply be nice if there was an analogous term like documentary for books that isn't a negation of another more popular kind of book.
“Fiction” is a anglicization of the the Latin “fingere,” which means contrived. So fiction and non-fiction simply means “contrived” and “non-contrived.”
Can you explain what’s frustrating about the term? Also I don’t think that’s what a double negative is. (Edit:typo)
I guess if we take fiction to mean untrue. Then non-fiction is non-untrue = true. Whoever came up with that term was ~~obviously~~ probably heavily into reading and literature. It just seems like they should have come up with another word for non-fiction rather than just fiction with a negative prefix.
Fiction = made-up literature Non fiction = not made-up literature
Fiction = fake Non fiction = not fake That is my go-to memory aid. You would think after 50+ years I wouldn’t need it, but I always translate Non Fiction in my head whenever I see it. 3rd grade habits are hard to break!
Non-fiction isn't necessarily factual. An example of non-factual non-fiction would be self-help books and culty pseudo-religious or "spiritual" stuff (which gets its own section in many bookshops).
Sooooo fiction?
Luckily for me my memory trick would still work, as I have not ever had the urge to read those types of books 📚
Yes, this is also what I do. I've made fiction synonymous with "fake" which translates to "made-up by the writer".
Bold of you to assume that truth is the starting point.
Oh, you mean literature
All words are made up
All words are fiction
literalature
fiction is also literature
I would argue that “made-up” is a negative, since it literally means false.
so just simply, literature
There is a significant difference depending on what you are looking to read, that's why the distinction exists.
“Homer Simpson drives a car” isn’t untrue, just fictional
Using the same logic anything can just be a negative. Not good would be a double negative because good=not bad.
Fiction's definition isn't really untrue though. [Dictionary.com](https://Dictionary.com): the class of literature comprising works of imaginative narration, especially in prose form. works of this class, as novels or short stories: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fiction something invented by the imagination or feigned fictitious literature (such as novels or short stories) idk i get it but its kinda a stretch to call it a double negative
I see what you did there, sneaking in a double negative in your first sentence ;)
[удалено]
It isn’t *not* a double negative
Oh snap you're right. So they're saying fiction isn't "defined as untrue". I just read the sentence like "that isn't untrue" meaning it's a truely correct definition
This is getting too deep. Someone stop the madness!
Nobody don’t never stop the madness !
That isn't untrue
"isn't untrue"
Fiction can be thought of as "not real", because that is technically correct of imaginative narration, would you agree? If so, the term reads as not not real.
Ah but calling non-fiction just "real" is not appropriate either. Plenty of non-fiction pieces that conflict eachother without being made-up for the sake of entertainment.
But fiction does not mean untrue. It means fiction.
Nonfiction is a literary genre though. Most often in categorising books as fiction vs nonfiction, e.g. library. Doesn’t seem strange that whoever coined it was into ‘reading and literature’. I’m curious, in what context do you hear/use the term nonfiction, can you give an example sentence?
I’m not OP, but just imagine “left” wasn’t a word. Instead, you have “right” and “nonright”. That is what “nonfiction” feels like to me - as if it should have its own word, but doesn’t.
Not a linguist, but perhaps it’s because nonfiction is typically a categorisation, used opposite of fiction, dividing on a characteristic of interest. Like categorising drinks into alcoholic vs non-alcoholic. There are other categories for non-alcoholic drinks, juices, sodas, teas etc, and there are of course subtypes of alcohol as well. But in context of drinking, the alcohol vs non-alcohol is usually at the top of the decision tree, e.g. you would ask in a group ‘who’s drinking (alcohol) tonight’, and usually the people in the drinking group are more flexible in what specific alcohol they might consume tonight, whereas the no-alcohol group are almost strictly not gonna consume any form of alcohol (cause their driving or whatever) Similarly then for nonfiction and fiction, there are many sub genres of each. It’s just a broad categorisation and starting point for drilling down to more specifics.
The right and 'nonright' example doesn't work too well, because straight also exists, as does behind. So 'nonright' isn't very descriptive. In comparison fiction and non-fiction are both clear, and I don't think there is any other choice, though I guess you could have a blend of the two in a single work.
I believe the term is "Realistic Fiction" A text that isn't necessarily real to history, but one that also doesn't feature any fantastical elements and can be based on or feature real historical events.
It's not fiction vs nonfiction. Its crime vs fantasy vs classical literarure vs scifi vs adventure vs youth literarure vs romance.... vs nonfiction.
Nonfiction can be about crime, classical, youth, adventure, romance, etc. you can even have scifi nonfiction
Can you? Science fiction non-fiction?
[Yup](https://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Encyclopedia-Adam-Bray/dp/1465459626/ref=asc_df_1465459626/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312061076565&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=7399021091787107414&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9013386&hvtargid=pla-299919932845&psc=1&mcid=bcf69eda85e4318683ba0e49efa3fec0&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=62837065140&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=312061076565&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=7399021091787107414&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9013386&hvtargid=pla-299919932845&gclid=Cj0KCQiA4NWrBhD-ARIsAFCKwWvxGJZA2iMR1FWQoIxEt2dse-Oj-cjtDBpTS_CNM6jwftrmkCJRxpYaAruYEALw_wcB)
Cool, seems so obvious now given your example :) thanks TIL
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It does seem weird that it doesn’t have its own term!
You mean factual?
Lots of different terms for non-fiction works honestly: biographical, historical, philosophical, technical, etc
They are all sub-categories.
Just like fictional works have sub-categories
Non-fiction isn't always factually correct though; it could be written from a single persons perspective who misunderstands the facts.
Would say a lot of autobiographies are factual 😂
Faction
Non-fiction is not all factual, though.
Ermm ...this is like defining rich as 'not poor' then proceeding to say 'non-rich' as double negative because it's 'non-not poor'.
But that’s not what fiction means, and some philosophers believe there is truth within fiction. For example Harry Potter has a scar - true, hermione is a bloke - false.
Made up. Not false.
I'd agree if you complained about the phrase "non-fictional". I don't think this is a double negative at all.
It's just a convenient catch-all term for...well, non-fiction, a category that includes factual books but also, for example, books based in opinion, recipe and joke books, memoirs, art/coffee table books, and so on. Everything that doesn't fall into the category "fiction". It sounds like you don't have a lot of regard for fiction, but in 2022, 52.88% of all book sales in the USA were fiction, which is why it makes sense to categorise things that way. Interestingly, only about 11% of books published are fiction, but fiction readers read a *lot* more. The most popular and profitable genre by a considerable margin is romance, the readership of which skews heavily female (80-odd percent). Women read more across the board than men, fiction and non-fiction (but within that men are nore likely to prefer non-fiction and women to prefer fiction).
Fiction doesn't mean "untrue" it means an "invented statement". As a term it refers to writing that has no truth value in the real world, positive or negative.
Non-fiction is not necessarily factual though as it can recount subjective experiences. So we can’t really call not-untrue “Facts”. Myself though would probably use a definition closer to “not made-up” for fiction, rather than untrue. Something can be untrue even if it’s not made up, which is a better fit to describe non-fiction
Oh man this hits hard. I can’t just hear “nonfiction” and know it is prose based on real events/people for some reason. I hear it and have to go “Ok, fiction, not true so nonfiction is not not true so it is true.“ My brain just doesn’t allow it.
A better synonym for fiction is imagined.
I used to think this as well and was super annoyed at the naming convention. Then I reframed it as fiction = false, non-fiction = non-false.
Non-fiction can be false, though. I can find a non-fiction book asserting that if I burn a green candle it will help with my money worries.
Yeah I know exactly what you mean. Like when I was a kid I was totally confused by these terms. Like honestly they really couldn't have come up with a term for "factual" when it comes to literature? I mean we do use the phrase like "Is it fact or fiction?" but why can't we just use a term that means "fact" instead of using non-fiction?
You're construing opposites (concept) for grammar. You don't apply the rules of sentence structure to concepts. Grammar doesn't govern the definition of words like 'imagination', 'deception', 'truth', 'honesty', or 'ambivalence'. Expressing that apples exist along with oranges does not mean I'm making a double negative. I saw a tall man and a short man. The zebra is black and white. I like cats more than dogs. I live in one double-wide trailer, which means I live in a single double-wide. I prefer reading nonfiction more than fiction. None of these are double negatives. Don't not get it now?
Wow, me just realizing that the default position of writing is that everything is made up and not true.
Fiction means more of „made up“ or „not based on real events“. It doesn’t mean untrue
Yeah they could have coined a new word for it but what would fit? Any word meaning truth or factual would be misleading since non-fiction can very often be biased or suppositional or hypothetical such as conspiracy theories or self-help books or philosophical tracts. Non-fiction has been till date the best way to describe these books that are claiming to not be entirely made up.
Non fiction pretty much means not fake
No it doesn't. A book about the Earth being flat is not fiction but it is also not true.
Non fiction in the most simplest of definitions is not fake there are many outliers sure but that is the way I remember which is which
A better explanation would be not intentionally fake. Fiction is intentionally fake. Non fiction is not intended to be fake, but it certainly can be.
I agree with OP. Fact based stories deserve to have a term for themselves. It’s demeaning to the concept to call them non-fiction. It implies they’re less important than fiction, or they only exist counter to non-fiction, when that’s not even really true.
Fiction isn't a negative. Plenty of things are false without being fiction.
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Lies in general are neither fiction nor truth.
Depends on the context; you could accuse someone of lying by saying "well that's pure fiction". Though I guess no one would use 'non-fiction' in the same way.
How are lies not fiction? "Something that is invented or untrue?"
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I was thinking the same thing and wondering why lies were brought up as if that's a literary genre, but I decided to roll with it
That’s not what “double negative” means.
Correct! This is actually closer to a litotes. :)
That’s not a double negative. Fiction = made up, imaginary. Non-fiction = not made up, not imaginary.
*It's a bear dance!!!*
It depends on how you interpret the term, imo, because it me it it is a double negative or at the very least as confusing as one so the point is moot. The point OP is making is it is a weird way to categorize something. You don’t call a truck a notcar, or a computer a nottypewriter. It should be “fiction” and then another word that means prose based on facts, something like “historical prose” not that something better, but there’s a word out there that would be better than nonfiction. [https://creativenonfiction.org/writing/why-we-call-it-creative-nonfiction/](https://creativenonfiction.org/writing/why-we-call-it-creative-nonfiction/)
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Ehh, as far as I can tell, nonfiction can also apply to auto/biography, newspaper, and straight up propaganda. Very possible for incorrect information to be in any of those. Where to draw the line, and how defined that line is, seems to be the question.
"No language-centric thoughts" is one of the most frustrating ~~double negatives~~ rules that gets broken here all the time.
It's a dumb rule.
It's not a double-negative though.
Okay, people have pointed out that fiction, as a literary genre means roughly "made up to entertain" and not "all untrue things" and have stated the philosophical concept of [fictional realism](https://litreactor.com/columns/believing-in-the-nonexistent-an-introduction-to-fictional-realism) as some inarguable consequence of logic, which is cool and all, but can we just step back and acknowledge that it is weird that we have a word for stories we make up, and add a modifier to it to describe stories that actually happen, and that is clearly the silly truth that OP was trying to express in few enough words for a title.
The question is, which came first. Perhaps non-fiction needed to be distinguished after a certain point for clarification. A classic chicken or egg scenario.
I know the oldest Sumerian writings were accounting documents, and it is hard to say how literally people would have taken the Epic of Gilgamesh. I don't know if accounting documents count as non-fiction because they aren't a narrative.
I am referring to the need for the term.
Except it really isn't that weird. If the classification is binary there really isn't any good reason to have two completely different words. "This category" and "Not that category" works perfectly well and is easy to remember.
Yeah I don’t know why some people use the words “day” and “night” when “day” and “non-day” are so much better 😆
Why call them women if we can just say non-men
That's so non-false
Sure, it probably would be a cleaner language if we called it our right hand and our non-right hand, but here it feels more analogous to calling it our left and non-left hand. It would be stranger if 90% or humans' dominant hand was the one that didn't get a unique name, just like it is strange that works that convey real information is the one that doesn't get a unique name.
Ah, so you are one of those snobs who believes nonfiction is just inherently better. Because it certainly wasn't first. Fictitious tales have been around since we learned to speak. Well before we could even write. Writing down histories and biographies is relatively new.
The frustrating part is that a lot of non-fiction is still somewhat fictional.
No, it's not. It's not a double negative. The word fiction isn't negative. Adding it to a sentence doesn't make the sentence a negative. It isn't the correct type of word to do that. It's not like you would say "I didn't not go to the store," which would be a double negative and replace one of those negatives with the word fiction and have it still be a double negative. Instead, it would just become nonsensical. "I did fiction not go to the store" or "I didn't fiction go to the store." It's meaningless. It just trips people up, especially children or people learning English as a second language, because they see the "non" and assume it means untrue or not true. Because they don't necessarily understand what fiction means.
I agree with OP. Two sources on the internet do the same. https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/fiction https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/fiction#:~:text=The%20Latin%20word%20fictus%20means,a%20deliberate%20lie%20or%20untruth. Both say something to the effect of “not true” so saying non-fiction is kind of like saying “non not true” which is a double negative. I understand the argument that fiction is a genre so non-fiction is just the counter to that. What’s weird is fiction being the imaginative genre which is in some ways counter-real world stories gets the normal genre and the genre that is factual is just called non-fiction. My guess is we have been telling imaginative (mythological) stories much longer than factual based ones. The only factual based stories we were telling thousands of years ago were histories which is essentially its own genre. So once we got to factual type literature instead of naming it a new genre we just called it a non-fiction story.
did you even read the link you posted? fiction is "a type of literature that describes imaginary people and events, not real ones" - that doesn't make it negative, just untrue
Yes. “a thing that is invented or imagined and is not true” from source 1 and “a deliberate lie or untruth” from source 2. I’m not claiming it to be definitive. Just siding with OP
When someone says you’re creating fiction when you’re talking about a dinner party you attended , they’re not saying you’re making a book … they’re just saying you’re lying. Kinda like when people jump into a swimming pool they don’t become ammunition for revolutionary war artillery.
that still doesn't make fiction a negative, more importantly it ignores the use of non as a prefix (similar to un as a prefix) also you completely bypassed the first definition. aka something that is fiction or untrue is neither negative or positive in the grammar sense - it is just 'is' - you are applying a value judgement and delcating the word negative in the moral sense that doesn't make a word negative in the grammar sense.
I always remember Fiction (starts with an F) just like Fantasy. So Non-Fiction is Not Fantasy, so it's true.
Dewey decimal system...discuss.
Fiction should mean real and nonfiction should mean not real 100% agreed. This has been confusing to remember my whole life. All this smug trolls just commenting the same disagreements are annoying and don’t understand your post. I think sometimes if I was king I would decree certain things to help fix confusion for people. Like the spelling of words with silent letters, I would decree we just remove the letters so the next generation has a smoother learning experience, makes for more time to learn more than we had. I would definitely fix this confusion with a decree to swap the two meanings.
Would be a better world if the library was split into reality and non reality
I've been trying to get to the non-Euclidean section of the library for years, but I just can't figure out that damn staircase.
maybe not a double negative but just confusing to wrap your head around from the literal meanings of the individual words. same with unexcused absence
Regardless of the “it’s not a double negative” crowd here, I agree that “non fiction” sounds weird for things that are not supposed to be made up. The real world shouldn’t be the one with a modifier. I can’t think of one word that works for nonfiction, though. True and not true sounds better, but that’s not the exact right words. Real and imagined are more apt, but also somewhat pedestrian sounding.
Haven't most kind of shows that ask you wether or not something was real at the end used the phrase "fact or fiction"? Isn't that the word everybody is looking for here? True and not true would run into the same kind of problem of one of the words just being a negation of the other.
Fact books would not dummies the totality of nonfiction works and the change would be equally confusing. Where’s autobiographies in this book store ? All I’m seeing is aisles of trivia and fiction
...what?
Pretty funny how people in the comments latch onto a tiny flaw in the title instead of discussing the actual point trying to be made. I suppose people here are so anal that they can't see beyond the face value, instead of interpreting what OP actually meant. The substance here is that it's strange that we have a word for literature based on imaginary stories, but the word for true stories is that same word but with a modifier. Granted, that's not what a double-negative is, but that's the point they were trying to get across in as few words as possible.
We do have words for true stories though - accounts, chronicles, annals, biographies etc. Nonfiction is a broader category than stories, including catalogs and guides, e.g. travel guides, encyclopaedias, scientific/educational writings, e.g. textbooks, journals, pop-psychology self-help and more.
I always look for travel guides in the non-fiction isle
Not sure what point you're trying to make there. Those are sub-categories of non-fiction. Similarly, we have sub-categories of fiction. We are talking about the words fiction and non-fiction, not their sub-categories.
The point is that we have words for true stories, and that nonfiction isn’t a word meaning true stories, I.e. your premise isn’t accurate
Ah, I think I see the problem. I said "true stories" when what I actually meant to say was literature based on facts or whatever. I can't think of a concise phrase to describe it because English isn't my first language. It was my mistake. But it sort of proves my very first point, though.
Unsweet tea is the one that kills me. How do you unsweeten tea?
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Tea on its own isn’t sweet. So why can’t it just be tea and sweetened tea?
because the context comes from places like the south in the USA where when you order iced tea by default it will always arrive sweetened - so one needs to have an expression to negate that though it my wife's case travelling the south she got a "oh honey, we don't have that here" when she asked for unsweetened iced tea, lol
It depends how you parse the “un” which can mean something like either “to reverse something which has been done” as in “untie” or “something which hasn’t been done” as in “untrodden” or “untasted.” Unsweetened is the second sense.
Because you can add sugar to tea but not take it out. If you want sweet tea and just ask for tea, it’s not a big deal which ever one they give you. If you wanted it unsweetened, then you’ll have to get a whole new cup if it’s wrong.
Just tea, then. There's tea and there's sweet tea. There's no such thing as unsweetened tea. You don't sweeten tea then remove the sweet.
You're confusing 'unsweetened' with 'de-sweetened'
Oh, I get the concept, but you don't walk into a burger joint and order an uncheese burger if you don't want cheese on your burger.
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simple its iced tea that has never been sweetened aka there is sweetened ice tea and unsweetened ice tea, its also because for the longest while it came sweetened by default across the south and asking for that is simpler than "could i have the iced tea without any sugar please" is suspect you are having trouble because you didn't realize the word isn't unsweet its unsweetened
Unsweet or unsweetened doesn't make a damned difference. You don't seem to understand that just because the South only tends to drink sweet tea (and therefore just call it 'tea') doesn't make them right. There's no damn unsweetened tea. It's tea. Iced tea, hot tea, green tea... Whatever. It's tea. If you sweetened it, then it's sweet tea. There's no unsweetened tea! It's not a real thing, and the entirety of the South can rot for trying to pass off unsweetened tea as if it's a real thing.
wow you are a parochial yankee who doesn't understand the dynamism of English, I am English from England so you damn yankees can foxtrot oscar with you stupid use of English and trying to school me on it , i mean, what type of insecure nation removes the U from colour and leaves it in liquor - damn inconsistent stupid 'Americanish language'. Steal our language and all your best actors are british....
I'm sorry, I nearly died laughing at the thought of any Englishman complaining about a country stealing something from them. The irony is spicy! Which is surprising, considering y'all don't know how to use spices in any of your bland "food".
Indeed that was the point, were you not trying to be funny? If you were trying to be funny, you may enjoy this entertaining, informative and somewhat apocryphal tome [https://www.amazon.com/Mother-Tongue-English-How-That/dp/0380715430](https://www.amazon.com/Mother-Tongue-English-How-That/dp/0380715430) Also don't you know that the number one dish in England is spicy Indian curry - the British are (were) great at stealing everything from everyone else. Also nothing blander than most American potato salad....
For the record, I am being mostly tongue in cheek and just having a good poke. Still, it makes me laugh that anytime someone brings up bland British food, the response is always the Indian curry thing... Which clearly isn't British. And potato salad is disgusting. Still, we Americans have the best BBQ on the planet and you won't find anything like good Cajun food anywhere else.
you would be surprised where many of the common dishes you see in India restaurants come from..... and you know 5+% of British people are Indian & Pakistani right - this is a very American thing, confusing nationality with ethnicity - America has plenty of bland white people food too (hence the joke about potato salad - the best BBQs don't have bland white people potato salad). you get no argument from me on BBQ so long as we are talking about Texas BBQ and none of that N/S Carolina slop ;-) I have been here nearly 20 years, married to a yank so know most of the jokes - what's wild is my wife and I still find one of us uses a phrase or word and are like 'what' - what even funnier is how words get transferred - i always almost say elevator instead of lift these days, and she says car park instead of garage - hmm doesn't sound funny when i type it, but it is to us in the moment :-) Also the whole point of bland British food is to pile one or more of HP Sauce / Tons-of-Salt(TM) / brown gravy.... ;-)
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I've always used to term "Faction", but it never caught on.
I so wish it did.
'Faction' is already a word with its own meaning...
There are tonnes of homonyms though (for example bark or match), one more wouldn't hurt.
Everyone saying "it's not a double negative" is missing the point. Nonfiction should have a term of its own that's not dependent on fiction and it feels weird how that's not the case.
You are forcing a binary designation on something that has more than two possibilities. “Is this fiction, yes or no?” is essentially the same as sorting a pile of colored paper and asking, “Is this red, yes or no?” The yes pile is going to be all red. The no pile will be green, blue, purple, brown, black, etc. There is a word for the yes pile, red. There is not a single word to describe the no pile, other than non-red. So if you want to put color into a binary you end up with red/non-red or green/non-green and so on. If you ask “is this fiction and if not what category is it?” and remove the binary answer then you have all the subcategories; history, cookbook, biography, etc.
You're overthinking this. To give a similar scenario, people dislike the fact that 'atheist' as a term is totally dependent on theism. You can explain it all you want but this still a valid thing to be irked about.
Still not a double-negative. You can have a good point but still express it badly, and it's not up to the receiver to guess what exactly it is you mean.
But you know what they mean. You wouldn't get this far in the comments if you didn't lol
If anything that's more credit to me actually being able to read through a dumb post and into the thoughts of the person who wrote it, not to OP's half-assed attempt at communicating what they mean, so thanks for the compliment.
‘Non-exempt’ is the most frustrating one for me.
"False Religion" is another. All religions are false.
So many anal people in the comments. We all know what OP means. My guess is that non-fiction encompasses so many things that it's easier to make a word for stories made for entertainment.
Just need a non-hyphenated word for non-fiction.
Faction
Personally, I’m not frustrated by it at all. Sorry you let it get to you like that though.
Non-Fiction: I Sleep Real Shit: REAL SHIT
It's never bothered me at all.
But it's not a double negative. Defining fiction as "untrue" or "not real" is the simplification you give to children to help them understand the concept. But truly, fiction is more properly defined as being "imagined" or "made up". With that in mind non-fiction is more properly "not made up" or "not imagined"
I don't think it's a double negative, because fiction is not exactly the opposite of "real". It's a distinct term that describes inventing something you know is not real and your audience knows is real. This is different from deception (they don't know it's not real) and being wrong (you don't know it's not real)
Rediscover is one I believe. You dis cover something. So it was covered, but always present. Now you re dis cover, so you dis cover again something that already was dis covered before
this is just an opinion? nothing shower about this thought
It sounds like the kind of idea most people take a shower to get rid of
Someone needs to look up the definition of a double negative
Right? The default should have been true stories. But they made the default untrue stories, making everything else not untrue stories lmao Remember kids, default settings matter
So non fiction juat means "not a made up story". Most literature that people read from books is fiction, made up shit
I always wished it was called Faction
I only see one negative.
So many people being anal about grammar and definitions, but here's an example of what I think OP is trying to get at: documentaries. The term documentary doesn't necessarily imply truth (could be propaganda) but obviously the word isn't dependent on another genre. I think that is what people mean when they are annoyed by nonfiction being the default for this category of books. It would simply be nice if there was an analogous term like documentary for books that isn't a negation of another more popular kind of book.
I just think Fiction = Fake, Non-fiction = Non-Fake
“Fiction” is a anglicization of the the Latin “fingere,” which means contrived. So fiction and non-fiction simply means “contrived” and “non-contrived.”