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.
15 December 2010	advertisement - Any theatrical performance for a paying audience.
13 June 1999	advice - The wisdom we draw from our experience with crevasses and avalanches and pass along to new jungle explorers.
1 April 2016	agitprop - The working part of a flying washing machine, that is, a device which tries to go over your head and claims to drop down things that it claims are clean.
8 October 2001	alimony - See parsimony.
27 September 2009	anonymized information - Information which is sufficient for an advertiser to identify an individual, but not for a judge.
29 November 2013	appliance - Everything applicable, for example, paint.
30 November 1999	argument - A mutual exercise in opinion consolidation.
26 May 2000	arrogance - Justified true belief.
24 February 2007	art - A craft in which too much progress holds you back.
30 October 2007	art community - A group of people with shared ideals, each of whom tries to stand out above the others by being exactly like them.
3 March 2018	artifact - Craftifact.
20 May 2020	artificial - Indirectly natural.
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.
28 January 2018	at your own risk - Don’t sue. If it were actually dangerous, it would be outright forbidden.
3 May 2014	author - A self-authorized authority.
6 April 2009	autobiography - Authorized hagiography.
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.
7 September 2008	aversion - A second-order effect of indirectness on the first-order thinker.
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.
12 June 2008	Beary Bashe - The international language of drunken parties, spoken with little change since ancient times. With its reduced vocabulary of “weee!” “ugh” and “urp”, it is among the simplest of all natural human communication systems.
6 May 2006	believable - Conceivable.
15 April 2020	best by date - A point in time which, over decades, asymptotically approaches the time when the manufacturer would like you to buy more, namely “best before now.”
17 April 2001	best practice - A display case of ideas which is thought to contain more diamonds than dirt clods.
30 November 2020	big data - Wrong data.
16 August 2003	blackout - A period of unawareness followed by blame.
10 March 2012	blaze of glory - Going down in flames.
6 September 2009	bloc - A mess which is childishly taken to be an object.
28 November 2008	bloodbath - Ritual impurification.
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.
30 May 2010	campaign promise - Retcon opportunity.
17 May 1993	car alarm - A device to warn passers-by that a car is in the vicinity.
18 January 2008	carbon star - In the universe at large, the red result of burning helium too long. On Earth, the green designation of those who burn any appreciable amount of hydrogen.
2 November 1993	carpe diem - A wise Roman saying, meaning “God is an ornamental Japanese fish.”
3 December 2012	CCTV - Closed-Circuit Television, such as China’s state broadcaster China Central Television.
6 May 2008	cell phone - A devilish contraption which, at terrible cost to etiquette, allows you to talk to who you want rather than who’s nearby. (The old-fashioned telephone already destroyed “whom”, which cannot be heard over the wires.)
7 May 2008	cell tower - An eyesore best located far away; also, a necessity best located nearby. Your research contributions desperately needed! Make checks payable to Invisible Antenna.
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.)
20 March 2010	city - Formerly, a way to concentrate problems into a small area so that you could escape them by moving to the suburbs. Currently, a way to get faster internet.
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.
5 August 2010	code name - The public name of a project privately called “the mess” or “the disaster”.
19 February 2008	coefficient of restitution - How much you get back after the smackdown; the ratio between the rule of law and the law of rules. In case of government orders, its value is usually zero.
1 September 2009	colorfast - Slow to change color, as voters in Japan.
29 October 2009	commercial district - A place covered by a multitude of signs.
24 August 2002	common sense - A rare property exhibited by exceptionally intelligent people who agree with me; also known as sanity.
9 January 2013	complacent - Not currently embroiled in crisis.
14 January 2007	compromise - An attempt to combine the politically acceptable aspects of two courses of action into a compromised plan.
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.
4 April 2008	concord - Alternate spelling of “conquered”.
10 December 2012	context - The universally-present motivating (“con”) story (“text”).
24 October 1998	continental drift - The British view of European politics.
3 September 2017	continuing resolution - A demonstration of the resolve to keep on disagreeing.
15 September 2015	contractor - Expander, that is, a business whose purpose is to expand contracts.
15 April 2000	controversial - Known by more than one economist.
5 October 2005	conventional wisdom - A rumor that people are thoughtless enough to believe.
13 May 2020	cooperate - Obey.
17 July 2008	copyright - An intellectual property protection which, in civilized nations, extends in duration at a time-averaged rate of one year per year.
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.
18 September 2012	critical - Of or resembling a critic, thus, very important.
24 December 2011	critical distance - The safe range from the critical mass.
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).
13 November 2007	curiosity - An itch that, when scratched, becomes worse.
11 April 2002	customer service counter - The point of no return.
15 March 2013	cyberdefense - Cyberoffense. Nobody knows how to defend.
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.
10 January 2008	declarative programming - An idea for programming computers, under which saying that something is true makes it so. The goal is to make programs as easy to write as laws, so we can have more of them.
29 June 2017	deconfliction zone - An area which, entered at the wrong time, creates a conflict.
9 March 2007	defect density - A fictional number, normally greater than zero and less than the official project goal, which estimates the difference between the amount of work done to write the software and the amount of work done to understand it. Finding the defect density is a task carried out in lieu of asking the question, “But are they fire ants?”
5 November 1993	de jure - A culinary term meaning “technically”. For example, “soup de jure” means “this stuff meets the legal definition of soup”.
1 December 2009	democracy - Government of the people, by the people, against the other people.
12 December 1999	denormalization - A method of realizing efficiencies by destroying normal idealism in a database, floating point number, or adolescent.
13 June 2017	deontology - The study of duty, or equivalently, the process of getting rid of ontology.
6 August 2007	destiny - The kind of destination that doesn’t get you anywhere.
13 July 2012	digital native - A person shaped by the transient affordances of a passing era.
23 October 2007	disaster - An inferior Dis.
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.
29 March 2020	don’t try this at home - Unless you want to have fun.
7 April 2019	down to a science - Down to a routine, or in other words, converted to the opposite of a science.
1 July 2014	due process of law - Bang a gavel, sign a paper. All done.
22 September 2009	durable - Tending to remain the same despite external changes–just what you want to avoid in a dynamic world. In the limiting case, inalterable; a cornerstone of the universe or, equivalently, a stumbling block for progress.
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.
27 October 2008	economic forecast - A weather forecast made from last month’s thermometer and barometer readings.
26 February 2009	economic sentiment - Two times the first derivative of economic reality, plus the occasional speech.
16 February 2011	economics - A social science which uses just enough numbers and equations that it doesn’t need to add “science” to its name.
14 May 2005	e-con-o-mist - Electronic confidence-game of fog.
5 April 2013	economy - A thing which is always broken one way or another but which everyone knows how to fix; in short, an ill for all cures.
31 May 2007	edgy - Just original enough to be noticed; compare good.
19 January 2012	elder statesman - A former political leader whose misdeeds are finally forgotten.
7 November 2006	election - 1. A sporting event in which the spectators are the players. The winning team’s goal is to attempt to rig the next game.
16 December 2010	2. A theatrical performance for an audience who, whatever they say, are actually looking elsewhere.
3 January 1999	election campaign - A put-on which you can’t put off and have to put up with.
15 June 2007	eminent domain - Manifest destiny.
18 January 2019	emphatic - The opposite of empathic.
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”.
7 June 2007	epic - Lasting one epoch.
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.
10 October 2008	eurozone - A multinational economic union distinguished by its lack of a common economic policy.
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.
6 June 2008	except as permitted by law - A standard escape clause in corporate privacy policies, allowing the corporation to do as it will. Legal theory holds that eyes glaze over in the fine print.
24 March 2002	exceptional - Not exceptionable.
16 November 2013	exceptionalism - Being on top for a while.
8 September 2009	executive - One who decides what to execute and who to execute but doesn’t have to execute it.
16 November 2019	exemplary - Unexampled.
10 May 1999	experience - The process of gradual accumulation of cynicism.
29 October 2007	experimental art - Art that you’re not any good at yet.
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.
7 May 2020	explicit - Not more than 75% implicit.
19 December 2008	face-recognition software - A stopgap until faith-recognition software can be developed.
2 August 2004	fact - An opinion whose disproof nobody believes.
11 March 2017	Fair, Reasonable, And Non-Disciminatory - In business, what the market will bear; in everyday life, Nordic.
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.
24 June 2008	fearsome - Fearless and then some.
6 December 2006	feasibility study - A means of getting the answer “yes” with a distant lower bound on the cost.
23 September 2008	first amendment - (U.S. Constitution) Originally, a freedom of the people, by the people, for the people. Currently, a legal definition separating the few who should be manipulated from the many who can be simply suppressed.
28 November 2011	flexible business plan - One which is described as fly-by-wire and executed as fly-by-night.
12 May 2007	focus group - A set of elements behind the objective which moves on command to make everything look sharp.
29 January 2003	foolproof - Invisible and intangible.
6 August 2014	footloose - Bootless.
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.
30 March 2017	free - (persons or objects) Of use to no one.
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.
27 February 2019	future-proof - Gone and forgotten.
9 August 2020	gainsay - Losssay.
1 October 2004	genius - One who can recognize a failure before it’s too late to try again.
26 May 2017	gerrymandering - The practice of using people to draw electoral districts, rather than computers.
31 January 2010	globalization - The process of creating harmony among a choir, each of whose members sings to a different microtonal scale.
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.
2 February 2008	Guitar Hero - A series of video games secretly sponsored by CATS (Creative Association of Talentless Strummers), the trade group for teen bands. Goals of the game are to be addictive, to be easy to learn, and to be as different as possible from actual guitar playing, to head off any competition.
22 May 2016	habit - The opposite of a vase: Break the expensive ones.
21 January 2018	hard sell - The opposite of padded cell; the sane way to do wrong.
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.
3 September 2016	healthy debate - When the debate is over, everyone still has their health.
28 February 2016	hedge fund - A type of investment fund named after its hedging strategy, that is, its way of keeping out of view behind an opaque green (“unparalled returns for sophisticated investors”) rampart (“past performance does not guarantee future results”).
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.
14 January 2010	home entertainment center - Toybox.
29 September 2002	honesty - The lazy habit of relying on memory rather than on creativity and reasoning.
23 March 2007	honor - A system of rules that allows you to believe that you are usually doing the right thing; that is, a no-op.
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.
24 May 2019	human-like - Kagood, due to being located near the center of the universe.
16 February 2015	hybrid warfare - Warfare. The term is for use by specialists who are so focused on their path from A to B that they may forget the other paths.
5 April 2018	hyper-converged - Virtual; that is, hype-converged. The real convergence comes when biotech merges with the rest of human tech.
10 March 2008	hypergolic - Of or pertaining to the Middle East.
8 March 2014	ideally - 1. Always. (mathematics) 2. Never. (all other fields)
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.
21 August 2010	impeccable - Of no interest to pigeons and other birdbrains.
23 January 2012	incorruptible - Uninstructible.
4 February 2016	incuse - A story to get you in, like a fake diploma; the opposite of an excuse (a story to get you out).
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.
3 January 2010	indoctrinated - Shot through with the canon.
2 May 2008	industry standard - Everybody else is doing it, we should be able to get away with it too.
30 June 2008	ineffective - The preferable variety of government action to restrain rising prices in a time of uncertainty; for the alternative, see counterproductive.
2 July 2007	inevitable - According to fatalism, everything; according to the doctrine of free will, nothing; according to experience, unforeseen.
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.
12 December 2019	in good company - You won’t be fired without messing up.
30 July 2013	in harmony with nature - Selfishly controlling everything for our own benefit over a long enough time to work the kinks out.
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.
5 July 2018	inspirational speaker - Instigational speaker.
8 January 2007	instant - Formerly, the opposite of extant; currently, everything in existence.
4 April 2000	intelligence - The power of finding ever more interesting ways to go wrong.
13 September 2013	interior decoration - Inferior desecration. Do it properly, with monkeys and jellyfish.
11 November 2012	Internet kill switch - An emergency stop button to be used when losing the internet will do less harm than good, a situation so desperate that we don’t yet know what it is, though advanced thinkers such as Hosni Mubarak have figured it out.
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.”
7 April 2014	IQ test - An instrument to measure your similarity to the creator of the test.
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.
2 February 2013	it’s like shooting fish in a barrel - It makes no sense whatsoever. Why would you shoot fish? Especially if they were already in a barrel?
8 October 2012	it worked like a charm - Those superstitious idiots fell for it.
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.
9 July 2009	jury - A focus group of your peers.
2 January 2001	keeper - The opposite of loser.
23 April 2009	language - A concretion of abstractions constituting the deification of reification.
14 August 2015	last frontier - Whichever frontier you happen to be talking about at the time.
26 July 2006	lasting peace - The calm produced by pressing everyone under the same boot heel; it endures until the next step is taken.
2 January 2017	law - The pretence that life is a game played by rules.
10 January 2004	learning - Being surprised differently every time the same thing happens.
2 August 2008	legendary - Named below the picture.
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.
2 October 2012	lifting body - Falling body.
7 July 1998	Limbaugh - A heavily radioactive rush into oblivion.
4 October 2010	liquidity crisis - Solidity crisis.
16 January 1999	living in sin - According to some, the fate of all since Adam and Eve. According to others, no big deal.
2 September 2017	living the dream - Dreaming the life.
11 January 2008	logic programming - An idea to make computer programming easy by relying on innate human skill with logic. However, so far no one has proposed Aristotelian logic programming.
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.
28 May 2007	luxury - That state of bliss which is always one promotion ahead of your current salary.
10 March 2010	machine - A computer with specialized peripherals.
17 September 2008	machine translation - Calque-ulation.
19 December 2017	MAD - The definitional criterion of high art, namely that prize committees or other prestige structures provide Mutually Assured Distinction.
13 October 2011	magical thinking - The other side’s thinking.
10 July 2002	marriage - The launching of a vessel into deep waters, thus changing a relationship of two into a ship of two relations.
22 August 2008	martial arts - Marital arts in the face of a slight disorder.
28 September 2007	masterpiece - An externalized externality of art; the occasional, accidental side effect of trying to avoid being awful.
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.
6 September 2009	mental bloc - The result of playing around in blocs world.
25 November 2003	mentally healthy - Too simple to have a complex.
18 January 2007	middle of the road - The place to stand if you wish to be run over by both sides.
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.
6 August 2008	mono no aware - Out of it due to infectious mononucleosis.
18 March 2018	monotreme - Extreme for x=1.
3 December 2018	morally wrong - Immorally right.
18 October 2010	mortgage - In boom times, a loan you can get but can’t afford; in the bust, a loan you can afford but can’t get.
20 January 2016	most wanted - Most unwanted.
30 January 2001	MRE - The military Meal Ready to Eat, an abrasive substance used to grind down and polish off one’s own soldiers.
20 March 2008	multiparadigm programming language - Vegan roast beef. Now coated with syntactic sugar!
2 March 2008	multitasking - 1. The action movie ability to jump from one train of thought to another, losing only your knowledge of where you are going.
23 October 2009	2. In computers, doing one thing after another in rapid succession so that everything is accomplished at once. In humans, doing one thing with another so that nothing can be accomplished.
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.
6 May 2016	national security - Notional security.
14 August 2008	NATO - Not Able To Oppose.
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 September 2014	news - Formerly, the first draft of history; today, the summary of the world’s Twitter feed.
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.
17 April 2007	nor’easter - A traditional storm that regularly causes power outages in the U.S. northeast. For other regions, substitute your local vocabulary.
18 February 2019	notwithstanding - Withstanding, that is, standing up against.
4 December 2003	novice - One who has bought an education but not yet paid for it.
24 December 2020	now - The worst possible time to do what you should have done long ago.
25 December 2013	NSA - National Santa Administration. They know if you’ve been bad or good.
17 August 2010	nuanced - In art, thoughtful; in politics, confused.
13 July 2011	nudist - A person who truly understands that the coverup is worse than the crime.
23 August 1999	nymphoma - A cancer of romance novelists, affecting the nymph lodes and other parts of the emphatic system.
17 September 2020	objective reporting - Reporting to achieve a given objective.
15 September 2006	objectivity - In real life, the pretence of being an object. In journalism, the belief that competing lies all deserve equal time.
8 March 2009	offspring - That which springs off.
10 May 2010	oil spill - An inconvenient situation of transporting certain hydrocarbons from the Earth to the surface, as opposed to the convenience of transporting them all the way into the atmosphere.
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.
14 September 2010	organizational memory - The process of remembering the theorems and forgetting the proofs while the axioms keep on changing.
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.
7 January 2008	out of the box - Not dead yet.
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.
8 June 2010	overlook - To undersee.
8 November 2007	oversee - To overlook.
7 May 1998	over the top - Of interest to postmodernists.
22 November 2009	oxymoron - A person brain-damaged by hyperventilation. Typical example: Michael Savage.
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.
13 December 2007	pathetic fallacy - A good-hearted idea which has suffered the slings and arrows of successful propaganda.
3 May 2019	pay attention - To ignore everything more important than what you are doing.
14 November 1998	peace - A brief interruption of the normal affairs of the world, serving to remind us of what we’re fighting for.
10 February 2008	peak oil - When they start selling gasoline in squeeze bottles.
12 January 2006	perception - A process of accepting and interpreting information which evolved to confuse philosophers.
9 December 2008	perfective - A property sometimes found in verbs and tinkerers. Use it wisely.
17 April 2008	PhD - Procrastination Habituation Degree, an extended investigation into the Procrastination Hierarchy of Dissertators.
25 May 1998	photosphere - The visible surface of photographers covering a hot news event.
22 September 2007	plain - 1. (of products) Not found in supermarkets, due to product differentiation and competition. 2. (of people) Not found in cities due to product differentiation and plastic surgery.
1 March 2012	plastic surgery - Surgery to make you look like plastic.
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.
14 January 2007	politically acceptable - Generally misunderstood.
5 June 2009	political office - An appointment followed by a disappointment.
27 February 2002	politician - A eutectic mixture of Batesian mimicry and brazen grandstanding.
22 October 2011	politics - That process in which other people’s mistaken understanding is good reason for you to make mistakes too.
26 August 2020	pop culture - The aftermath of bubble culture.
15 November 2010	populism - The dark side of democracy, that is, democracy.
26 December 2019	possible proof - Weak evidence.
1 May 2011	postdestined - Predestined, according to hindsight.
23 October 2004	potboiler - A labor of lunch, the one source of justified true reputation.
27 July 2011	practical joke - A joke which is impractical.
7 September 2005	preparedness - The ability to respond effectively to whatever type of disaster you’ve most recently recovered from.
30 August 2010	pricing power - The ability to act like an American university.
31 May 2008	prison - Where some humans are kept in captivity for the preservation of the species.
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!”
2 October 2007	prize - 1. In real life, an award given to one who wins a competition. 2. In an artistic Establishment, an award given to whoever needs it least.
12 January 2008	procedural programming - The common mode of programming nowadays, in which altering a program is treated as delicate surgery whose outcome cannot be guaranteed. But if the patient dies, at least you can roll it back to a previous version.
4 February 2009	productivity tool - A device which controls your productivity, positively or negatively according to its whims.
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.
14 February 2020	prolific - Shallow.
17 May 2017	proof of purchase - You are not sliding downhill.
212 December 2007	propaganda - 1. Originally prop-a-gander, or goose support; an essential step in the march of goose-stepping. Today, any advertising that you don’t like.
13 November 2009	2. A weapon of mass instruction.
15 November 1998	prosperity - The belief, stemming from unfortunate irregularities in the stream of economic shocks, that the stock market only goes up.
31 May 2013	protest - What you do to the other side when it’s no contest; a form of trying to sound bigger than you are, that is, asymmetric roarfare.
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.
19 June 2008	recover - To put the mask back on.
21 May 2012	red line - In international affairs, a line best crossed as quickly as possible, because remaining near it gets you bullied.
18 May 2002	reengineer - To replace the painstakingly analyzed weaknesses of a system or process with new, unknown weaknesses.
25 March 2010	reform - To replace a well-known policy mistake with another policy mistake that you hope is smaller.
18 December 2008	regenerative breaking - A critical innovation of modern electric business model technology, allowing the recovery of energy from the fragments of digested business models.
14 March 2012	regulatory framework - A systematic method for falling behind reality.
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).
13 May 2015	risk free - Risk is included at no extra charge.
28 December 2007	rule of law - A state of affairs whose successful implementation can be recognized by the presence of drive-throughs and the absence of drive-bys.
18 August 2009	rule of thumb - What you use instead of quantum mechanics when you don’t have a fast enough computer.
29 October 2008	sanity - Culturally-approved insanity.
22 February 2007	school - An institution of preparation. If good, it teaches you how to be taught; if bad, how to become a meal.
2 December 2007	scientific study - Muddy water believed to suspend particles of truth, used by scientists as a source of gold and by the general public as a source of dirt to splash around.
21 January 2007	scratch the surface - The popular method of determining how hard something is.
11 July 2003	script kiddie - Future senior information systems architect for your insurance company.
13 November 2008	serial monodoxasticism - The human practice of holding to one opinion at a time.
2 August 1999	sic transit gloria mundi - How wonderful it is to return to public transportation every Monday!
29 October 2020	simplicity - Complexity that you knowingly or unknowingly ignore.
3 August 2017	single - So low you’re solo.
19 June 2006	skill - Good luck that you get on purpose.
12 April 2018	slow learner - Someone who is just now deleting their Facebook account.
27 August 1998	smoking hole in the ground - 1. What every righteous terrorist endeavors to achieve. 2. What many thriving terrorists eventually become.
7 October 2007	social constructivism - Group solipsism.
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.
4 July 2016	split second - 1. When there’s not enough food for everyone to have more. 2. An unfortunate accident at a battleaxe duel.
12 July 2004	spontaneity - Sliding down every toboggan course on the nice hat of see distractibility.
7 July 2020	stable - 1. Uninfluenced. 2. Self-reinforcing.
25 May 2011	stakeholder - One who is waiting for the right moment to lay low any bloodsuckers like you.
19 December 2006	staple - The important part of a diet or intelligence report, which causes it to hang together rather than hanging separately.
4 February 2018	state of the art - State of the technology.
9 December 2007	stranger - One of the more familiar parts of the universe.
2 July 2020	strategic - 1. Of a weapon: Long-range. 2. Of a military target: Important. 3. Of an action: Sly. 4. Of a plan: Lacking in detail.
18 October 2018	strategy - In theory, an overall approach that you follow whether you realize it or not. In practice, a plan that you say the other strategist does not have.
21 December 2014	Streisand Effect - The boomerang effect of censorship backfiring, a trick used so often against the entertainment industry that they seem to have forgotten how to exploit it.
10 January 2011	structuralism - The opposite of contentism.
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.
4 May 2009	sustainable - Thermodynamically prohibited.
18 December 2015	Syrian Civil War - The answer to the question, “What could be more complicated and contentious than the Federal Acquisition Regulations?”
22 April 2001	taplomesis - The haplologistic tmesticization of “haplology” and “tmesis”, two words that need it.
9 September 2012	taser - A weapon sold as a downgrade of a gun and used as an upgrade of a baton. Who downgrades their stuff?
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.
10 October 2020	technical difficulty - Difficulty. Every difficulty is, technically, a difficulty.
18 December 1999	telephone - Formerly, a communication device. Currently, a network computer with inferior usability.
8 April 2008	tentative - With respect to a decision: Not yet past; there is hope yet.
8 July 2009	terms of service - The modern form of the loyalty oath, in which a lord or “corporation” demands absolute cooperation from its vassals or “customers”.
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.
20 February 2018	the fact is - The opinion is.
5 May 2015	the new normal - Any state of affairs that stays around long enough for you to start getting used to it.
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.
17 April 2016	the point of no return - It’s cheaper for the seller.
4 April 2002	this critical time - Now. Usage: “At this critical time, it is more important than ever to keep up business as usual.”
25 December 2012	to-do list - A collection of future plans which is constrained by natural law to extend at a time-averaged long-term rate exceeding one day per day.
12 March 2008	top-down - 1. Top-down design: A plan of building castles in the air with the hope of eventually bulldozing enough earth underneath to hold them up. 2. Top-down management: Dictatorship. 3. Top-down thinking: The habit of seeing everything as tiny and insignificant, a pale blue dot.
30 November 2005	tortured - Of or resembling a CIA denial of torture.
6 September 2009	trade bloc - An impediment to trade.
18 June 2011	tradecraft - Formerly, basic spy skills. Currently, the only way to get a little privacy in the surveillance society.
29 July 2010	transparency - The ability for me to control the flow of information, not somebody else.
14 December 2010	trial - A theatrical performance for a discriminating audience whose opinion matters.
11 February 2000	trilogy - A work of fiction in four or more volumes, published in order of declining quality.
3 November 2017	truth - Whatever you have failed to learn to ignore.
3 December 2009	TV news - 1. Reality television in which nobody listens to the director.
4 December 2009	2. Found entertainment.
7 February 2014	unconformity - A sure sign of the erosion of cultural strata.
1 July 2015	unconventional war - The conventional kind of war.
8 December 2017	undefined - Uninteresting.
7 April 2017	undergrowth - Overgrowth.
6 January 2014	under-resourced - If somebody else sets your goals, neglected; if you set your own goals, ambitious.
1 September 2004	under the weather - 1. Suffering altitude sickness from no longer being high. 2. (aerospace) Suffering altitude sickness from being low.
5 October 2017	uniformed - Uninformed.
13 September 2017	unimaginable - We have to imagine that it would be bad.
31 July 2013	unnatural - Impossible.
18 November 2019	unprecedented change - Change. unprecedented stability - Heat death of the universe.
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.
5 July 2013	volcanologist - One who sees an active volcano as a gift horse that must be looked in the mouth.
7 October 2013	voter - Last among unequals.
6 September 2009	voting bloc - An impediment to trading votes.
15 October 2007	warm blooded - Achieving a successful compromise between being cold-blooded and hot-blooded.
28 June 2006	war on terror - The hyperimaginary canonical base of George “Roi Soleil” Bush.
5 November 2014	water board - A more boring generalization of the surf board, correctly used to control aqueducts but also employed for aversive conditioning of citizens.
6 October 2009	weapon of mass destruction - Originally, a nuclear bomb. Currently, a knife sturdy enough to be used twice.
17 December 2010	Wikileaks - A combination advertisement and election which is then put on trial.
16 February 2007	winter - A season of cold just short enough that the rivers do not run salt to replenish the oceans.
21 February 2003	wisdom - Knowing what to do when a stupid person says a smart thing.
26 April 2016	wistful - Having known. Etymology: From wit, to have knowledge of, past tense wist.
25 April 2019	working hypothesis - Playing hypothesis.
12 September 1998	xanthous - Jaundiced, cowardly, journalistic, or otherwise yellow.
1 June 2017	your days are numbered - Calendars exist (some people need to be reminded).
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.
5 September 2012	zero tolerance - The attempt to minimize problems by calling everything a problem, itself a problem that should be occasionally tolerated.
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.