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I think that confronted with the statement:

The claim is fictitious.

or even

The claim is made up.

most people would interpret it to mean, "The claim was actually made, but its content is made up," but I think it could also be taken to mean, "The claim was never made; its existence was made up."

Is there some usage or variant of "fictitious" that unambiguously means the latter?

Of course you can get around it by using a completely different sentence, like the one I just did ("The claim has never been made"), but I'm wondering whether there's an accepted alternative that keeps the nefarious connotations of "fictitious":

  • The former ("fictitious content") could be a lie, invented to lend credibility to a weak argument. "I wasn't in the area on the night of the crime."
  • The latter ("fictitious existence") could be a claim maliciously invented in order to attribute it to someone. The claim itself was never made by anyone, and (even if true) is fictitious in the "existence" sense (although attributing it to someone else is of course fictitious in the "content" sense).

I wondered at first whether that might be why we have both fictional and fictitious, but it seems that fictional is intended to be reserved for works of fiction.

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There are various words like fictive, fictitious, fictional etc, but all have a very similar meaning. You have to get across the idea that no claim was ever made. So why don't you say that?

'No such claim was ever made!'

Or you could say 'Any idea that a claim was made is fictional'.

And for clarity's sake if I wanted the alternative meaning, I might say:

'Any supposed claim made is fictitious'.

EDIT.

Since writing this I have decided the best way to refute that a claim was made would be to say 'No claim exists/was ever made'. Any use of 'fictional' may well confuse the listener as to the meaning.

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  • "What claim?!"...
    – Oldcat
    Commented Mar 8, 2014 at 0:30
  • @Oldcat Quite right. Apologies and amended.
    – WS2
    Commented Mar 8, 2014 at 8:00
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You can say, "The alleged claim, if it exists, is fictitious." (Although...it's hard to imagine that the claim can be both fictitious and potentially non-existant. This seems more like a logic puzzle!)

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  • I found my brain starting to hurt while writing the question :) The "fictitious content" has more to do with the factual content of the claim, independent of whether it's actually been made or who made it. The "fictitious existence" necessarily refers to an instance of the claim being made by someone, regardless of whether the claim is true or not. The two ideas seem to intersect in the concept of "fictitiousness", though the former seems the more usual interpretation.
    – shambulator
    Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 15:02
  • Gotcha. (I think! lol!) Fictitious seems to be used much more often to mean the details of the claim, not the claim, itself.
    – Kristina Lopez
    Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 15:15
  • I have decided the best way to refute the fact of any claim is to say 'No claim exists/was ever made'.
    – WS2
    Commented Mar 13, 2014 at 12:36

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