the Whale Dictionary

Jay Scott : Daily Whale : archive : dictionary

24 April 2002	accounting opportunity - The opportunity to account for insufficient bringing to account of opportunities; for example, "the dog ate my homework."
10 February 1999	act of war - Any violent act against the remaining superpower, the United States.
13 June 1999	advice - The wisdom we draw from our experience with crevasses and avalanches and pass along to new jungle explorers.
8 October 2001	alimony - See parsimony.
30 November 1999	argument - A mutual exercise in opinion consolidation.
26 May 2000	arrogance - Justified true belief.
11 November 2006	artwork - Ideally, a concrete abstraction. In practice, a case of art imitating art, such as an abstract concretion.
16 August 2006	attitude problem - Standing up, as opposed to lying down on the job.
21 July 1992	automobile - A torture device allowing victims to go where they think they want to.
22 March 2001	autotrophy - Total internal refection; for example, a car-racing prize.
24 October 2000	backstory - A part of the story which is left out so that the part of the story which is left in (the front for the story) won't be left behind in the bathroom.
6 May 2006	believable - Conceivable.
17 April 2001	best practice - A display case of ideas which is thought to contain more diamonds than dirt clods.
16 August 2003	blackout - A period of unawareness followed by blame.
22 August 2004	boring - Never said by Oscar Wilde, or even La Rochefoucauld.
13 May 2001	boredom - A pre-electronic state of mind characterized by a low level of intellectual stimulation and a high level of satisfaction with tech support.
23 January 2004	bug - According to the vendor, any feature which you do not understand; according to the user, the entire software package.
10 March 2001	bureaucracy - A diffuse, acaulescent perennial displaying seriate or adventitious laciniate scutella, or "departments", and distinguished by indurated scandent pneumatophores conveying hot air.
17 May 1993	car alarm - A device to warn passers-by that a car is in the vicinity.
2 November 1993	carpe diem - A wise Roman saying, meaning "God is an ornamental Japanese fish."
12 September 2004	chain of command - A system for transmitting commands downward and information upward. Modern electronic implementations often include diodes to prevent responsibility for errors from being traced to their origin at the top, but high-voltage events may bypass this protection. (See Abu Ghraib.)
24 April 2004	civilization - The large-scale organization of human society, a system so powerful that it can thrive in the face of its own tax codes.
16 September 2001	civil liberty - Freedom; what you don't have in military times. (See military liberty.)
30 October 2002	clean - 1. adj. Lacking in dirt, an extremely rare state not known to occur in nature and found only in semiconductor processing facilities and 1950's sitcoms. Usage: "A clean sweep gives you a dirty broom." 2. v. To redistribute dirt.
24 October 2006	clumsy - Pertaining to or resembling any attempt to exert control over a large decentralized system, such as the No Child Left Behind act or the Kyoto Protocol.
3 June 2005	code - Used of secret messages, computer programs, and laws--artifacts that are to function without being understood.
24 August 2002	common sense - A rare property exhibited by exceptionally intelligent people who agree with me; also known as sanity.
14 January 2002	computer - A device which is half spork and half Swiss Army knife, only with more uses. Its single most important function is complexity management, a vital task now that there are so many computers.
6 May 2006	conceivable - Familiar.
24 October 1998	continental drift - The British view of European politics.
15 April 2000	controversial - Known by more than one economist.
5 October 2005	conventional wisdom - A rumor that people are thoughtless enough to believe.
19 November 2003	creative - A new yet, despite this, good idea; the result of a random number generator and a technician, or an equivalent system.
12 April 2004	cretin - By definition, an idiot; by etymology, a Christian; in practice, anyone who believed Epimenides.
19 June 2004	criticism - In art, an activity best left to posterity, when more will be known. In life, an action best taken immediately and vigorously, because you're not to speak ill of the dead.
10 July 2006	cross-disciplinary - Either pre-disciplinary (about to become a discipline in its own right) or undisciplined (naughty but you got away with it).
11 April 2002	customer service counter - The point of no return.
2 December 2001	deadline - A point of stress accumulation, where breakdown may occur; that which tends to unhinge, because everything hinges on it.
19 January 2001	debate - A contest in which two or more people talk to themselves as loudly as possible.
26 March 1999	decisiveness - The second most reliable means of blundering, surpassed only by indecisiveness.
5 November 1993	de jure - A culinary term meaning "technically". For example, "soup de jure" means "this stuff meets the legal definition of soup".
12 December 1999	denormalization - A method of realizing efficiencies by destroying normal idealism in a database, floating point number, or adolescent.
21 November 2006	disillusionment - The only thing more important than disconfusionment.
25 November 2006	distractibility - The talent of knowing at every moment exactly what you want, no matter how different it is from what you wanted a moment before.
9 November 1993	dyslexia - A word carefully designed so that dyslexics will never be able to spell it.
26 January 2000	Earth - According to radical environmentalists, the ashtray of human endeavor, deserving to be cleaned up. According to radical capitalists, a creampuff of credulous consumers, deserving to be cleaned out. In either case, a lot of fun.
14 May 2005	e-con-o-mist - Electronic confidence-game of fog.
7 November 2006	election - A sporting event in which the spectators are the players. The winning team's goal is to attempt to rig the next game.
3 January 1999	election campaign - A put-on which you can't put off and have to put up with.
22 December 2006	end - The point of a goal; the middle of the human body; the basis of a new beginning; altogether, the thumbtack of fate.
31 May 2001	English major - 1. In common parlance, a future taxi driver, street bum, or even journalist; in educated usage, a future English professor or other failure. 2. A person with abnormal ability to spell the word "occurring".
18 October 1999	escalate - A technical term in news headlines, meaning that the story can be skipped because it reports an unchanged situation. Usage: "Russia Escalates Chechnya Attacks" "China Escalates War of Words" "Escalating Reader Dissatisfaction Spurs Journalism Reform"
6 November 1993	et cetera - My dog ("cetera") ate the rest of this, so you'll have to imagine it.
6 May 2001	ethicist - One who is more worried than curious about the consequences of experimentation; the opposite of a scientist. Ethicists did not help the world into the mess it's in; they are still considering whether the obsidian spear point was a good idea. Ethicists are another proof, alongside the Office of Management and Budget, that too much thinking ahead is a mistake.
15 December 2000	Excalibur - 1. A former seed hull which stuck to the tenth avatar of Vishnu. 2. An algebra problem; calculate the bore diameter.
24 March 2002	exceptional - Not exceptionable.
10 May 1999	experience - The process of gradual accumulation of cynicism.
24 May 2005	experimentalist - 1. One who eventually succeeds in showing that, no matter how crazy it is, it's false anyway.
23 May 2006	2. A low-level functionary whose sole purpose is to feed raw material to the theorist. Alternately, the one genuine source of all scientific insight. It amounts to the same thing.
3 December 2003	expert - One who, within a prescribed domain, displays unusually incomplete ignorance.
2 August 2004	fact - An opinion whose disproof nobody believes.
13 July 2002	fashion - That system of artificial constraints upon which no artificial constraints can be imposed.
18 February 2002	fast-acting formula - A necessity for the aspiring Hollywood performer, namely, the ability to get through auditions while hungry.
6 December 2006	feasibility study - A means of getting the answer "yes" with a distant lower bound on the cost.
29 January 2003	foolproof - Invisible and intangible.
10 September 1999	footnote - A sciolist's scholium, scilicet, sclerosis of the say-so.
15 July 1998	foretopgallant - Reputation aspired to by most men. foretopgallantmast - Body part aspired to by most men.
4 July 2001	frame - A device to hold artwork flat so that the art detracts as little as possible from the gaudiness of the frame. The frame exploits its painting in the same way that televangelists exploit their congregations.
24 March 2003	free press - In times of stability, a forum for political posturing; in times of rapid change, a mechanism for sorting out the higher-quality rumors.
5 November 2001	FUD - Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt, the means by which dominant monopolies attempt to maintain their positions against competition and by which small terrorist groups attempt to become dominant monopolies; the way to do well if you don't do good.
13 August 2006	function - That which eclipses form, except when human beings are involved--and with natural selection operating, how likely is that?
11 March 2000	future - That period of time which you have spent your life, thus far, preparing to be surprised by.
1 October 2004	genius - One who can recognize a failure before it's too late to try again.
22 December 2001	globalism protester - One who sees capitalism not as goal-driven but as gold-riven; not as a launching gantry for landed gentry, but as a cratered terrain.
4 July 2003	graduate school - The arena of gladiators who are fighting to discover fields of expertise narrow enough to dominate.
25 April 2000	great art - Good art which, at the time, nobody liked.
24 April 1999	hard work - The secret ingredient that allows geniuses to soar and ordinary mortals to keep their heads above water.
2 July 2002	head - In human beings, the location of the brain. In serious scholars, an acerose xyloid projection attached anteriorly between the shoulders and extending via infiltration metasomatism into the ether.
4 February 2002	hero - One who is unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and lucky enough to get away with it.
29 September 2002	honesty - The lazy habit of relying on memory rather than on creativity and reasoning.
30 September 2006	HP - Hapless pigeon. Also, heedless perpetrator.
13 August 2005	human - The rational animal, that is, the only animal to have a theory of rationality to fail to live up to.
7 April 2002	human being - A hive organism collectively intelligent enough to invent television, and individually stupid enough to watch it.
21 November 2000	ignorance - Everything except unjustified false disbelief.
22 May 2001	immaculate conception - The book which, like John Paul Jones, you have not yet begun to write.
31 January 2002	indemnify and hold harmless - To identify as extremely harmful; the indemnified is so fearsome that it, like a government, can force others to serve as its guards.
29 May 2006	individuality - That which is left over when a rigid framework is imposed; the category "miscellaneous" which we strive to minimize.
15 June 2001	infallible - Theoretical.
25 April 1999	ingenuity - The secret ingredient that inspires geniuses to hard work and ordinary mortals to smug self-satisfaction.
3 November 1993	in loco parentis - An obsolete doctrine, once followed by colleges and universities, that the school must be at least as crazy as its students' parents. Contemporary doctrine holds that it must be crazier yet.
9 May 1999	innocence - A transitory developmental stage occurring between birth and cynicism.
5 June 1998	insanity defense - An attempt to prove that you're more messed up than you appear, so that the law will mess you over less than you deserve.
28 January 2004	inspiration - The attempted labor-saving device of pretending that the work is coming to you, rather than from you.
4 April 2000	intelligence - The power of finding ever more interesting ways to go wrong.
13 December 2005	invent - To introduce a new idea which, in the long run, increases civilization's level of noise.
30 June 1998	in vivo veritas - A truism of medical biotechnology: if you want to know whether it works, you have to try it in people.
4 November 1993	ipso facto - "Even a drunkard could understand this."
23 September 2006	Italy - A foreign country whose alien customs allow that, when large spy schemes involving illegal phone taps and the unauthorized amalgamation of secret government databases are discovered, people may actually be arrested and jailed.
7 March 2002	job interview - A procedure for mixing wheat with chaff by means of agitation.
14 June 2002	joke - A form of prevarication followed by divarication followed by being caught out, distinguished from government office by its short duration.
2 January 2001	keeper - The opposite of loser.
26 July 2006	lasting peace - The calm produced by pressing everyone under the same boot heel; it endures until the next step is taken.
10 January 2004	learning - Being surprised differently every time the same thing happens.
16 July 1998	Lesbos - The island of Less Boys, perhaps instituted due to the attentions of Rambo, Rimbaud, and other foretopgallants.
11 September 2006	life - That which we believe we understand well enough to find interesting.
7 July 1998	Limbaugh - A heavily radioactive rush into oblivion.
16 January 1999	living in sin - According to some, the fate of all since Adam and Eve. According to others, no big deal.
18 June 2003	love - A form of involuntary hormonal optimism, dangerous to critical decision-making skills. Fortunately, given time it is self-curing.
10 October 2004	ludic - Not lucid but mixed up.
10 July 2002	marriage - The launching of a vessel into deep waters, thus changing a relationship of two into a ship of two relations.
1 June 2001	math major - A person who is able to cover the null ideal with residually irreducible quasinilpotent positive operators having countable cofinality, and who is unable to choose matching socks.
5 May 2004	mature content - Content that the immature may object to.
16 January 2000	memoir - A sheaf of lies, bound and gagged in the form of a book; a way to become more famous and less well-known.
25 November 2003	mentally healthy - Too simple to have a complex.
16 September 2001	military liberty - Free time; another thing you don't have in military times (though the military may take liberties). (See civil liberty.)
5 July 1999	miracle - A fish story come of age.
12 March 2002	mission creep - 1. The natural result of having choices, as in the song "You take the high road, and I'll take the garden path." 2. In successful missions, the opposition; in failed missions, the commander.
30 January 2001	MRE - The military Meal Ready to Eat, an abrasive substance used to grind down and polish off one's own soldiers.
5 November 2003	mutual fund - An investment arrangement in which investors get to feel their money is safe and working for them, while managers and brokers feel the money in the safe and work to get it for them.
27 February 1992	nationalize - 1. To seize an industry so that it can lose money for the government, instead of for itself.
2 May 2006	2. To take from the rich and give to the powerful.
20 October 2003	need-to-know - A policy of gumming up the organization by withholding information from those who need to know it to do their jobs better, providing it only to those who are known to need to know it, which information is itself under need-to-know.
19 April 2002	neither admit nor deny wrongdoing - To confess.
27 August 2006	never - Outside the planning horizon; not this month.
9 August 2001	news report - An information source whose accuracy is inversely proportional to your familiarity with the original events.
15 July 2003	Nike of Samothrace - A sculpture, created by an exuberant and now dead civilization, symbolizing victory followed by losing your head.
4 December 2003	novice - One who has bought an education but not yet paid for it.
23 August 1999	nymphoma - A cancer of romance novelists, affecting the nymph lodes and other parts of the emphatic system.
15 September 2006	objectivity - In real life, the pretence of being an object. In journalism, the belief that competing lies all deserve equal time.
2 September 2001	omnia vincit amor - Insect love; literally, "ommatidia evince amour".
9 December 2001	originality - The practice of inventing one's own mistakes, rather than following the generally-accepted ones.
21 June 2001	ostracism - The result of neglecting personal hygiene, of allowing the neighbors to learn about the undead monsters and/or world domination weapons in the basement, or of worrying too much what others think of you.
27 January 2000	outer space - A region, comprising nearly the entirety of the universe, of little interest to humanity. Exceptions are astronomers, science fiction fans, and other resident aliens.
14 September 2005	outsourcing - Paying someone else for the cleanly-defined work, or (as no such thing existed before) as much of it as you can invent, so that you can get on with the dirty work.
7 May 1998	over the top - Of interest to postmodernists.
6 January 1994	papal bull - An appropriate name for it.
9 June 2005	paranoia - The unjustified belief that you can tell who is out to get you.
7 October 2001	parsimony - A ten-dollar word for thrift; therefore, a complicated word meaning simplicity; therefore, a valid description of almost everything that people think they know.
5 January 2000	party like it's 1999 - To hide in a bunker for fear of terrorist attacks and Y2K bugs.
12 March 2000	past - That half of creation which, uncredentialed, teaches us all our lessons. There will be a quiz.
14 November 1998	peace - A brief interruption of the normal affairs of the world, serving to remind us of what we're fighting for.
12 January 2006	perception - A process of accepting and interpreting information which evolved to confuse philosophers.
25 May 1998	photosphere - The visible surface of photographers covering a hot news event.
3 May 1999	plot hole - 1. The primary unifying motif of many Hollywood movies. 2. The mistake in the plans of the bad guys, which lands them in a grave situation.
27 February 2002	politician - A eutectic mixture of Batesian mimicry and brazen grandstanding.
23 October 2004	potboiler - A labor of lunch, the one source of justified true reputation.
7 September 2005	preparedness - The ability to respond effectively to whatever type of disaster you've most recently recovered from.
12 November 2001	privacy policy - A document expressing, in elaborate poetic language, a business's attitude toward its data about you, namely "Mine! Mine mine mine!"
27 December 2003	progress - 1. The transference of fear from enraged bulls to mad cows.
3 August 2006	2. The race to minimize the time between when an invention is made and when it becomes indispensable.
15 November 1998	prosperity - The belief, stemming from unfortunate irregularities in the stream of economic shocks, that the stock market only goes up.
13 August 2000	raison d'etre - One who is essential because you need those dried grapes back.
13 July 1998	Rambo - A sheep boy of unusual violence. Often led to the slaughter, he always wound up carrying it out.
26 February 1992	rationalize - To reorganize an industry in such a way that it becomes irrational.
8 September 2000	realism - A virtue which should be practiced in moderation, and, afterward, is usually found to have been.
18 May 2002	reengineer - To replace the painstakingly analyzed weaknesses of a system or process with new, unknown weaknesses.
21 November 2003	relatively untainted by scandal - A technical financial term meaning that the handcuffs are not yet locked.
1 March 2005	relativism - To take as one's subject that we are all subjected to subjectivity, and as one's objective to object to objectivity.
14 April 2006	relaxation algorithm - A family of optimization algorithms which are typically known to the couch potato and unknown to the successful dotcom, leading to dotcomic results as the company breaks down or breaks up, rather than breaking through.
5 October 2002	reliable - Resistant to human intervention.
2 February 2001	repurpose - Milk for every drop. Usage: "We can cover the shortfall by repurposing the pension fund."
6 October 2000	restraint - Tied hands, bloody noses, and bad publicity; in general, whatever the opposing side needs more of. Usage: "Don't worry, y'all, everybody will show restraint."
24 January 2003	resourceful - 1. Amply endowed with resources; that is, rich. Example: Iraq has the world's second-largest oil reserves. 2. Able to come up with resources whenever necessary; that is, larcenous. Example: The United States.
1 September 2003	righteous - Wrongeous.
14 July 1998	Rimbaud - A boy sheep of violent unusualness; Rambo's evil twin. A gun runner, slave trader, famous poet, and generally everything that Rambo isn't.
15 October 2001	risk aversion - In moderation, the practice of sidestepping disasters (see stock market); in excess, the shedding of bad luck onto others (see NATO).
11 July 2003	script kiddie - Future senior information systems architect for your insurance company.
2 August 1999	sic transit gloria mundi - How wonderful it is to return to public transportation every Monday!
19 June 2006	skill - Good luck that you get on purpose.
27 August 1998	smoking hole in the ground - 1. What every righteous terrorist endeavors to achieve. 2. What many thriving terrorists eventually become.
6 February 2004	space race - Formerly, a contest among nations to get their scientists into space first. Currently, a contest among space scientests to get the most from their nations.
30 October 1999	spin control - Putting the right English on it.
12 July 2004	spontaneity - Sliding down every toboggan course on the nice hat of see distractibility.
19 December 2006	staple - The important part of a diet or intelligence report, which causes it to hang together rather than hanging separately.
12 January 2001	sub rosa - The ancestor of the yellow submarine.
6 August 2005	surveillance - The plot of the cat to bell the mice.
25 February 1992	subsidize - To allow an industry to lose money beyond its means.
22 April 2001	taplomesis - The haplologistic tmesticization of "haplology" and "tmesis", two words that need it.
26 June 2004	Tasmanian devil - The world's most accurately-named animal; it comes from Van Diemen's land, and that is in fact what people do.
9 October 2006	tear gas - An agent designed to transform a fire in the eyes into a burning in the eyes.
18 December 1999	telephone - Formerly, a communication device. Currently, a network computer with inferior usability.
26 August 1998	terrorist - An emotionally challenged individual who believes that hurting people will frighten them more than it enrages them. Related terms: schoolyard bully, fire ant.
24 May 2005	theorist - 1. One who makes up crazy stuff and, when skilled, sees it turn out to be true.
22 May 2006	2. A person whose mission it is to explain reality in terms that few understand, with the ultimate goal of discovering a final and correct explanation that nobody understands. Exception: The mission of a string theorist is to explore Wonderland.
4 April 2002	this critical time - Now. Usage: "At this critical time, it is more important than ever to keep up business as usual."
30 November 2005	tortured - Of or resembling a CIA denial of torture.
11 February 2000	trilogy - A work of fiction in four or more volumes, published in order of declining quality.
1 September 2004	under the weather - 1. Suffering altitude sickness from no longer being high. 2. (aerospace) Suffering altitude sickness from being low.
27 September 2005	urbane - The opposite of urban.
12 February 2004	usable 1. Capable of use; thus, pre-21st-century. 2. Convenient to use; thus, post-19th-century.
15 June 1998	value-added tax (VAT) - The only type of tax which is more complex, more expensive, and more fair than income tax.
28 June 2006	war on terror - The hyperimaginary canonical base of George "Roi Soleil" Bush.
21 February 2003	wisdom - Knowing what to do when a stupid person says a smart thing.
12 September 1998	xanthous - Jaundiced, cowardly, journalistic, or otherwise yellow.
26 June 1993	zero defects - A marketing term, applied to products or manufacturing processes, but meaning that the hype has no holes.
29 December 1993	zero-knowledge negotiation protocol - 1. A cryptographic information transfer technique. 2. The major component of a typical family discussion.
25 December 2006	zombie - A mythological coffee addict who has gone without for a long period, such as overnight; said to be uncoordinated, incoherent and repetitive in speech, green, and generally indistinguishable from the shambling undead.

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