What is a "terminological inexactitude" exactly?

I'm guessing that the writers of Easy A are patting themselves on the back for their use of the term "terminological inexactitude." The 2-word, 11-syllable term most likely comes across to the audience as puffed up synonym for "lie." Most of the audience anyway. Some nitpickers will however pick apart the use of this term in the film.

The story concerns Olive (Emma Stone), a high school student who quickly gains a reputation for being a slut despite the fact that she is in fact a virgin. On her webcast, Olive talks about the "velocity" with which her "terminological inexactitude" travels through the entire school. Olive invents a college guy and lets her best friend, Rhiannon (Aly Michalka), jump to the conclusion that Olive lost her virginity to that guy during the weekend that just passed. The reality is that Olive stayed at home by herself the entire weekend.

I have no quibble with the first part of the term. My first thought would have been to use "verbal" instead, but it seems like the rumors spread as much through text messages as through phone calls and face-to-face conversations, perhaps more.

It's the second part of the term that gives me pause. The thesaurus defines "inexact" as "imprecise" or "inaccurate" or "vague," etc. I don't see anything like "totally false" in there. It seems to me that most people make a distinction between "imprecise" and "false." For example, it is imprecise to say that π is 3.1, but it is completely false to say that is negative 78 trillion.

Thus, going back to the film, it would have been inexact for Olive to say that she had sex with the guy if she had made out with him on his bed. But the guy doesn't even exist in the first place! Olive actually comes closer to sex with Brandon (Dan Byrd), artlessly described as a "homo," at Melody Bostick's house party. But it seems like she never actually says "I had sex with Brandon," because it is much easier to just let people think that after the weird performance they put in behind closed doors.

On the other hand, even nitpickers must acknowledge that the normal person cuts herself more slack for imprecisions than she does others, that is, if I say something false then it is an inexactitude, but if you say something false it is a lie.

Maybe in another installment we will take a look at what could be the most famous imprecision slash lie in the entire filmic canon: the idea that Darth Vader killed Anakin Skywalker.

Stewie will never kill Lois

With Family Guy finally switching to 16:9, the show remains mired on many of its familiar tropes of more or less recent vintage, such as Quagmire's weird out-of-left-field hatred for Brian or James Woods' obsession with Quahog. But one old trope dusted off for last night's episode "And Then There Were Fewer" was Stewie's supposedly matricidal intentions towards his mother Lois, declared from the very first episode and examined in the episodes "Stewie Kills Lois" and "Lois Kills Stewie."

But let's not forget "Death is a Bitch," in which, with Death incapacitated, Stewie throws Lois down the stairs, followed by an armoire and a grenade. Lois is none the worse for wear, because Death's broken ankle has not healed. Various nitpickers have pointed out that if Stewie really intends to kill his mother, he could've done any of the things he does in that episode when Death was infirm.

In last night's episode we get more evidence that Stewie's matricidal rants are just talk: before Diane Simmons can kill Lois, Stewie uses a long-distance rifle to kill Diane, then declares that if anyone will "drop" Lois, it will be him. Well, Stewie, you missed your chance: why couldn't you kill both Lois and Diane? Did you only have one bullet with you?

Quick note to Ann Curry on the Fifth Amendment

In a quick check of the headlines on the Today show today, Ann Curry said that one egg company exec "took the Fifth Amendement." The popular expression is just "took the Fifth." The appropriate legal expression would be "invoked his Fifth Amendment rights." It's OK for a journalist to use either expression, but to mix them the way Ann Curry did today sounds a little weird.

The mysterious forces of money

The film: Bruce Almighty (2003)
What happened: God (Morgan Freeman) gives Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) all His powers and responsibilities (though mostly limited to Buffalo, New York). However, like God Himself, Bruce can't "mess with free will." Bruce uses his new powers for his own personal gain. After failing to propose to Grace (Jennifer Aniston) at the restaurant where they had their first date years ago, Bruce starts hearing thousands upon thousands of prayers, which he had so far ignored. God tells him he must do something about the prayers before they pile up further. So Bruce puts them on a computer as e-mail and spends the rest of night trying to answer many of them. The next day, having barely made a dent, Bruce decides to grant all requests. At the next lottery drawing, some 400,000 players, all of them from Buffalo, win, reducing each individual's prize money to $17.
What doesn't quite make sense: If God created the universe, surely He has the power to let a few thousand people win the lottery simultaneously. But how would this particular 'miracle' be accomplished, exactly? Especially given the respect for free will explicitly stated in the movie: Bruce can pull down the Moon and give his girlfriend a remote orgasm, but he can't make her love him. Can we even assume that those who pray asking to win lottery actually play the lottery?
The thing is that playing the lottery involves quite a bit of free will, even after making the decision to play the game. In the State of New York, according to the New York Lottery website, there are a number of different lottery games people can play: Mega Millions, Powerball, Sweet Million, etc. The film does not specify which of these games the simultaneous winners played, but it does seem clear that they won the grand prize, which is usually shared by all those lucky enough to hit on the right numbers (splitting a few million with two or three other players still leaves you a heck of a lot of money).
And after you choose your game, what numbers do you play? Maybe after Bruce decided to let everyone win the lottery, God whispered into the prayers' ears the numbers to play. If they are not as resistant to God's messages as Bruce is, they could be convinced to play something other than their usual numbers. Or maybe God told them to let the computer pick the numbers, and then He made the computer give them all the same set of numbers? After that it would have been a simple matter of guiding the number balls accordingly at the drawing. And yet this explanation seems somewhat unsatisfactory.
There is another detail: the matter of the suddenly rising tech stocks. The stock market may seem even more mysterious and capricious than the lottery. But free will is also involved there. After you buy shares of a stock, you are free to sell them at any time afterwards (as long as they don't go all the way down to $0).
A quick note: I've been tempted to refer to God as "She" or "Her." In a Kevin Smith film, I could do that. In this film, and its sort-of sequel Evan Almighty, I can't do that.