Weed's Axiom|Never ask two questions in a business letter. The reply will discuss the one in which you are least interested and say nothing about the other.
Weiler's Law|Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself.
Weinberg's First Law|Progress is only made on alternate Fridays.
Weinberg's Principle|An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the grand fallacy.
Weinberg's Second Law|If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
Weiner's Law of Libraries|There are no answers, only cross references.
well-adjusted, adj.|The ability to play bridge or golf as if they were games.
Westheimer's Discovery|A couple of months in the laboratory can frequently save a couple of hours in the library.
When asked the definition of "pi"|The Mathematician: Pi is the number expressing the relationship between the circumference of a circle and its diameter. The Physicist: Pi is 3.1415927, plus or minus 0.000000005. The Engineer: Pi is about 3.
Whistler's Law|You never know who is right, but you always know who is in charge.
White's Statement|Don't lose heart! Owen's Commentary on White's Statement: ...they might want to cut it out... Byrd's Addition to Owen's Commentary: ...and they want to avoid a lengthy search.
Whitehead's Law|The obvious answer is always overlooked.
Wiker's Law|Government expands to absorb revenue and then some.
Wilcox's Law|A pat on the back is only a few centimeters from a kick in the pants.
Williams and Holland's Law|If enough data is collected, anything may be proven by statistical methods.
Wilner's Observation|All conversations with a potato should be conducted in private.
Wit, n.|The salt with which the American Humorist spoils his cookery ... by leaving it out.\n-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
wok, n.|Something to thwow at a wabbit.
wolf, n.|A man who knows all the ankles.
Woodward's Law|A theory is better than its explanation.
Woolsey-Swanson Rule|People would rather live with a problem they cannot solve rather than accept a solution they cannot understand.
work, n.|The blessed respite from screaming kids and soap operas for which you actually get paid.
Worst Month of 1981 for Downhill Skiing|August.  The lift lines are the shortest, though.\n-- Steve Rubenstein
Worst Month of the Year|February.  February has only 28 days in it, which means that if you rent an apartment, you are paying for three full days you don't get.  Try to avoid Februarys whenever possible.\n-- Steve Rubenstein
Worst Response To A Crisis, 1985|From a readers' Q and A column in TV GUIDE: "If we get involved in a nuclear war, would the electromagnetic pulses from exploding bombs damage my videotapes?"
Worst Vegetable of the Year|The brussels sprout.  This is also the worst vegetable of next year.\n-- Steve Rubenstein
write-protect tab, n.|A small sticker created to cover the unsightly notch carelessly left by disk manufacturers.  The use of the tab creates an error message once in a while, but its aesthetic value far outweighs the momentary inconvenience.\n-- Robb Russon
WYSIWYG|What You See Is What You Get.
XIIdigitation, n.|The practice of trying to determine the year a movie was made by deciphering the Roman numerals at the end of the credits.\n-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
Year, n.|A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.\n-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Yinkel, n.|A person who combs his hair over his bald spot, hoping no one will notice.\n-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
yo-yo, n.|Something that is occasionally up but normally down.\n(see also Computer).
Zall's Laws|(1) Any time you get a mouthful of hot soup, the next thing you do will be wrong.\n(2) How long a minute is, depends on which side of the bathroom door you're on.
zeal, n.|Quality seen in new graduates -- if you're quick.
Zero Defects, n.|The result of shutting down a production line.
Zymurgy's Law of Volunteer Labor|People are always available for work in the past tense.
Obscurism|The practice of peppering daily life with obscure references as a subliminal means of showcasing both one's education and one's wish to disassociate from the world of mass culture.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
McJob|A low-pay, low-prestige, low-benefit, no-future job in the service sector.  Frequently considered a satisfying career choice by those who have never held one.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Historic Underdosing|To live in a period of time when nothing seems to happen. Major symptoms include addiction to newspapers, magazines, and TV news broadcasts.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Historic Overdosing|To live in a period of time when too much seems to happen. Major symptoms include addiction to newspapers, magazines, and TV news broadcasts.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Brazilification|The widening gulf between the rich and the poor and the accompanying disappearance of the middle classes.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Vaccinated Time Travel|To fantasize about traveling backward in time, but only with proper vaccinations.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Veal-Fattening Pen|Small, cramped office workstations built of fabric-covered disassemblable wall partitions and inhabited by junior staff members.  Named after the small preslaughter cubicles used by the cattle industry.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Emotional Ketchup Burst|The bottling up of opinions and emotions inside oneself so that they explosively burst forth all at once, shocking and confusing employers and friends -- most of whom thought things were fine.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Bleeding Ponytail|An elderly, sold-out baby boomer who pines for hippie or presellout days.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Boomer Envy|Envy of material wealth and long-range material security accrued by older members of the baby boom generation by virtue of fortunate births.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Consensus Terrorism|The process that decides in-office attitudes and behavior.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Sick Building Migration|The tendency of younger workers to leave or avoid jobs in unhealthy office environments or workplaces affected by the Sick Building Syndrome.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Recurving|Leaving one job to take another that pays less but places one back on the learning curve.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Ozmosis|The inability of one's job to live up to one's self-image.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Power Mist|The tendency of hierarchies in office environments to be diffuse and preclude crisp articulation.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Earth Tones|A youthful subgroup interested in vegetarianism, tie-dyed outfits, mild recreational drugs, and good stereo equipment.  Earnest, frequently lacking in humor.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Ethnomagnetism|The tendency of young people to live in emotionally demonstrative, more unrestrained ethnic neighborhoods: "You wouldn't understand it there, mother -- they *hug* where I live now."\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Successophobia|The fear that if one is successful, then one's personal needs will be forgotten and one will no longer have one's childish needs catered to.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Safety Net-ism|The belief that there will always be a financial and emotional safety net to buffer life's hurts.  Usually parents.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Divorce Assumption|A form of Safety Net-ism, the belief that if a marriage doesn't work out, then there is no problem because partners can simply seek a divorce.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Legislated Nostalgia|To force a body of people to have memories they do not actually possess: "How can I be a part of the 1960s generation when I don't even remember any of it?"\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Now Denial|To tell oneself that the only time worth living in is the past and that the only time that may ever be interesting again is the future.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Bambification|The mental conversion of flesh and blood living creatures into cartoon characters possessing bourgeois Judeo-Christian attitudes and morals.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Diseases for Kisses (Hyperkarma)|A deeply rooted belief that punishment will somehow always be far greater than the crime: ozone holes for littering.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Spectacularism|A fascination with extreme situations.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Status Substitution|Using an object with intellectual or fashionable cachet to substitute for an object that is merely pricey: "Brian, you left your copy of Camus in your brother's BMW."\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Survivulousness|The tendency to visualize oneself enjoying being the last person on Earth.  "I'd take a helicopter up and throw microwave ovens down on the Taco Bell."\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Platonic Shadow|A nonsexual friendship with a member of the opposite sex.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Mental Ground Zero|The location where one visualizes oneself during the dropping of the atomic bomb; frequently, a shopping mall.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Cult of Aloneness|The need for autonomy at all costs, usually at the expense of long-term relationships.  Often brought about by overly high expectations of others.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Celebrity Schadenfreude|Lurid thrills derived from talking about celebrity deaths.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Poorochrondria|Hypochrondria derived from not having medical insurance.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Personal Tabu|A small rule for living, bordering on a superstition, that allows one to cope with everyday life in the absence of cultural or religious dictums.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Japanese Minimalism|The most frequently offered interior design aesthetic used by rootless career-hopping young people.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Bread and Circuits|The electronic era tendency to view party politics as corny -- no longer relevant of meaningful or useful to modern societal issues, and in many cases dangerous.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Voter's Block|The attempt, however futile, to register dissent with the current political system by simply not voting.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Armanism|After Giorgio Armani; an obsession with mimicking the seamless and (more importantly) *controlled* ethos of Italian couture.  Like Japanese Minimalism, Armanism reflects a profound inner need for control.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Poor Buoyancy|The realization that one was a better person when one had less money.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Musical Hairsplitting|The act of classifying music and musicians into pathologically picayune categories: "The Vienna Franks are a good example of urban white acid fold revivalism crossed with ska."\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
101-ism|The tendency to pick apart, often in minute detail, all aspects of life using half-understood pop psychology as a tool.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Ultra Short Term Nostalgia|Homesickness for the extremely recent past: "God, things seemed so much better in the world last week."\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Conspicuous Minimalism|A life-style tactic similar to Status Substitution.  The nonownership of material goods flaunted as a token of moral and intellectual superiority.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Air Family|Describes the false sense of community experienced among coworkers in an office environment.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Conversational Slumming|The self-conscious enjoyment of a given conversation precisely for its lack of intellectual rigor.  A major spin-off activity of Recreational Slumming.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Occupational Slumming|Taking a job well beneath one's skill or education level as a means of retreat from adult responsibilities and/or avoiding failure in one's true occupation.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Tele-Parabilizing|Morals used in everyday life that derive from TV sitcom plots: "That's just like the episode where Jan loses her glasses!"\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
QFD|Quelle fucking drag.  "Jamie got stuck at Rome airport for thirty-six hours and it was, like, totally QFD."\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
QFM|Quelle fashion mistake.  "It was really QFM.  I mean painter pants?  That's 1979 beyond belief."\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Paper Rabies|Hypersensitivity to littering.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Black Holes|An X generation subgroup best known for their possession of almost entirely black wardrobes.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Strangelove Reproduction|Having children to make up for the fact that one no longer believes in the future.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Poverty Lurks|Financial paranoia instilled in offspring by depression-era parents.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Pull-the-Plug, Slice the Pie|A fantasy in which an offspring mentally tallies up the net worth of his parents.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
2 + 2 = 5-ism|Caving in to a target marketing strategy aimed at oneself after holding out for a long period of time.  "Oh, all right, I'll buy your stupid cola.  Now leave me alone."\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Option Paralysis|The tendency, when given unlimited choices, to make none.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Jack-and-Jill Party|A Squire tradition; baby showers to which both men and women friends are invited as opposed to only women.  Doubled purchasing power of bisexual attendance brings gift values up to Eisenhower-era standards.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Down-Nesting|The tendency of parents to move to smaller, guest-room-free houses after the children have moved away so as to avoid children aged 20 to 30 who have boomeranged home.\n-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated
greenrd's law\nEvey post disparaging someone else's spelling or grammar, or lauding\none's own spelling or grammar, will inevitably contain a spelling or\ngrammatical error.\n-- greenrd in http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2002/4/16/61744/5230?pid=5#6
