I noticed that, in the dictionary, the words True, Right and Correct can have a meaning resembling accurate or exact. ODO says:
True (adj) = accurate or exact.
Right (adj) = true or correct as a fact.
Correct (adj)= free from error; in accordance with fact or truth.
and I'm writing about allegations made against a politician. I'm considering saying:
The allegations made against [politician] were true (or correct or right).
I would like to know:
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Is there a difference between those three? Would you imagine that allegations made against the politician are true has a slightly different meaning from allegations made against the politician are right or allegations made against the politician are true? (I have searched in ELU and read the post right vs. correct which doesn't help much to identify the difference particularly in this context).
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All of those three words have other meanings in the dictionary. For example, right has other meanings like denoting or worn on the side of a person's body which is toward the east when they are facing north.
If all these three words are essentially the same meaning, is there any reason I should avoid using one word or the other?
Best Answer
Words often have several — even many — meanings (polysemes) even limiting analysis to what are agreed to be usages of the same word (unlike different homonyms, bear = "animal" and bear = "carry" etc.). There can be many subtle shades of meaning and connotation.
I'd say that in your example, correct is unmarked for pragmatic comment (just as when a maths question is answered correctly); true carries fairly strong overtones of the dispelling of the assumption of a false smear campaign (ie there has been a suggestion in the media that the allegations are fraudulent); and right would be somewhere in between — but perhaps in a more informal register.
These shades of meaning are not universally carried by these words — a right-angle is no more morally acceptable than any other angle, and if a fence-post is out of true, it hasn't been dishonest. (Though it may have been lying in the garden.)