The word neologism has appeared in 19 New York Times articles in the past year, including on Oct. 17 in the On Language column "Truthiness," by Ben Zimmer: Around 4 p.m. on Oct. 17, 2005, Stephen Colbert was searching for a word.... What he was driving at wasn't truth anyway, but a mere approximation of it — something truthish or truthy, unburdened by the factual.
Perkins shapes the work of "an ugly lump of Carolina clay" (Wolfe's words, or an approximation of them) into something beautiful, while Wolfe introduces the staid family man to the abandon of the jazz age.
Talk of approximate truth is often invoked in this context, and has produced a significant amount of often highly technical work, conceptualizing the approximation of truth as something that can be quantified, such that judgments of relative approximate truth (of one proposition or theory in comparison to another) can be formalized and given precise definitions.
In a similar vein, there's the suffix -ish, which is increasingly called-upon, fairly indiscriminately, to describe an approximation, or a likeness of something, when in most cases there is an existing word, or two, that would serve just as well: "warmish," "tired-ish," "doing a good job-ish," "Clinton-ish".
He is a handsome man of 29, until he turns his head to reveal the monstrous approximation of an ear, like something a child might fashion out of clay.
Anyone who feels their approximation of the life of 20-something Brooklyn ladies is incomplete without a musical accompaniment can ready their headphones.
In "ColorMeAmerica" you find something of an approximation of Butoh — meaning that the movement is so rushed that it becomes dull — in a tale told in three parts.
Relaxed women, who shun clothing and prefer to wear their hair down, represent something like a 21st-century approximation of Eve; sometimes she is joined by a similarly half-dressed Adam, sometimes she's perfectly content to be alone.
The argument begins by envisioning atomic space something like a chessboard, which is a fair approximation of how the theologians did think of atomic space.
On the plus side, they actually delivered something listenable, even if it is a slightly more grey-sounding approximation of the first album.
