Lexical Compendium

Engels' Pause is a period during the early Industrial Revolution (1790–1840) in England in which economic productivity and GDP per capita rose significantly, but real wages for the working class stagnated or even declined. It was named after Friederich Engles and coined by Robert C. Allen.

Many have theorized that AI will bring about similar changes for today's workers.

In the Venture Bros episode "Perchance to Dean," Dr. Venture introduces Dean to progressive rock (including one of my favorites, King Crimson!). He leaves Dean and comes back later to find that he's fallen unconscious. Dr. Venture screams, "He's fallen into a Floyd Hole!"

The term "Floyd Hole," now refers to the act of losing track of time while consuming media.

For example, "It's already 4PM?? I fell into a Floyd Hole watching YouTube!"

Jevons Paradox is the economic principle stating that as technological improvements increase the efficiency of resource use, overall consumption of that resource may increase rather than decrease.

Originally observed by 19th-century economist William Stanley Jevons in relation to coal consumption during the Industrial Revolution, the paradox highlights how greater efficiency lowers costs, which can drive higher demand.

Jevons Paradox was in the news a lot early in 2025 after the unveiling of AI models developed by a Chinese start-up called DeepSeek. In a report titled "DeepSeek-V3 Technical Report" published in December, DeepSeek showed that they were able to create this AI model much more efficiently (and cheaper) than their counterparts (i.e. OpenAI's ChatGPT, Meta's Llama, etc).

AI research benefits from more efficient neural networks, yet Jevons Paradox suggests that these efficiency gains will lead to even greater overall computational demand, as more complex models are developed and deployed at scale.

While all of this was in the news, Microsoft's Satya Nadella posted on X: Jevons paradox strikes again! As AI gets more efficient and accessible, we will see its use skyrocket, turning it into a commodity we just can't get enough of.

From Wikipedia:

The Leahy Laws or Leahy amendments are U.S. human rights laws that ostensibly prohibit the U.S. Department of State and Department of Defense from providing military assistance to foreign security force units that violate human rights with impunity.

In 2024, as the Israel–Hamas war wages on, the Leahy Law has been in the news a lot.

In simple terms, the longer something is around, the better it gets (or the longer it's likely to continue to be around).

I first heard a reference to this in a Breaking Points episode in which the hosts were debating the merits of lab grown meat.

The origin of this term comes from a 1964 article published in The New Republic by Albert Goldman. In this article, Goldman described comedians that used to meet up at Lindy's Deli in NYC discussing comedy shows. An observation was made that the longer a show has been running, the longer it is expected to continue to run. This was formalized in something Goldman called "Lindy's Law." Note: this is also commonly referred to as the "Lindy Effect."

The Overton window is the range of topics that are considered acceptable or "mainstream" at a point in time. The term is used in political discourse and it implies that politicians can only advocate for policies within this window without risking their careers.

The window can shift: ideas that were once fringe (i.e. like women’s suffrage) can move into the window as social norms evolve. Conversely, ideas that were once mainstream can fall out of favor and become politically toxic.

The term is named after Joseph Overton, a vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy (1992-2003). To help with his fund-raising duties he designed a brochure describing what eventually became known as the Overton window. His view was that think tanks should be pushing policies that fall outside the window and help to shift the window.

When listening to policy wonks debate politics, this term seems to come up quite a bit.

The Stockdale Paradox is a concept named after Admiral James Stockdale, who survived as a prisoner of war in Vietnam for over seven years. The paradox describes a mindset that balances unwavering faith in a positive outcome with the discipline to confront brutal realities. Stockdale observed that prisoners who relied solely on optimism -- expecting to be freed by Thanksgiving, then New Years, then ... -- often succumbed to despair when their expectations weren’t met. In contrast, those who survived, like himself, maintained hope while also acknowledging and adapting to the harshness of their circumstances.

I'm not sure that I would have read it otherwise, but I worked a company were we were all gifted the book Good to Great by Jim Collins. This is where I first came across the Stockdale Paradox.

I came across it again recently while listening to The Interview (a New York Times podcast) interview of Ed Yong. Ed brought up the Stockdale Paradox as a means for coping with the state of the world right now.

The Streisand Effect is the phenomenon where the harder someone tries to suppress information, the more attention it ends up getting. The term originated in early internet culture after Barbra Streisand attempted to suppress photographs of her Malibu home in 2003 by suing a photographer. Before the lawsuit, the photo had been downloaded exactly six times. After the lawsuit became public? Over 400,000 views in a single month.⁴ What was meant to be hidden instead became famous.

In July 2025, The Epstein Files consumed much of the news cycle. Donald Trump and his administration had campaigned on the promise of releasing these files to the public. But Trump seemingly flip-flopped on the issue, instead urging his followers to simply "move on." The result: a rift in the MAGA world. Far-right activist Laura Loomer remarked, "The more Truth Social posts that are posted about this are going to create a Streisand effect."

The Hatch Act (1939) is a U.S. federal law^[1] that restricts the political activities of government employees to ensure that federal programs are administered in a nonpartisan fashion.

It was named for Senator Carl Hatch of New Mexico who sponsored and introduced the bill.

In October 2025, The Hatch Act was in the news as the government shutdown continues and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem published a video to be shown in airports blaming Democrats^[3].

I've used this word many times, but I never stopped to think about its origins and I was surprised to learn that it was eponymous. The term "borked" traces back to Robert Bork, a U.S. Supreme Court nominee whose 1987 confirmation was famously derailed by aggressive political opposition. His name became a verb -- "to bork" -- meaning to systematically obstruct or defame a nominee or candidate, especially through public criticism.

Though the word originally had political connotations, it also gained popularity in tech circles and online culture. This second usage may share the same etymology, but it’s equally plausible that it arose as a playful corruption of broke -- much like how pwn evolved from a misspelling of own.

I first heard about the political use of the word while listening to the 99% Invisible podcast.