True Meaning of “True”

Today, on the way home from work, I was standing on the train station platform. Across the tracks on the wall are billboard ads. You can find an ad for just about anything. This one billboard, directly across from me, was advertising an upcoming movie. What caught my eye was the tag line across the top that read, “Based on a true story.” The name of the movie was “Possession,” as in spirit possession.

My first thought was of how the degeneration of the meaning of words, such as “true,” by their casual, improper usage.

Obviously, people aren’t possessed. If they were then there would be people in the Emergency Room with possessions and there would be doctors specializing in the field. There aren’t, so saying that the events depicted in the movie are based on actual events is a stretch of any definition of “true.”

What they were probably meaning was “Based on someone’s claims of what happened, but really didn’t.” I guess that wouldn’t sell very well. *sigh*