Lexical Compendium

Sanewashing (also sometimes hyphened as sane-washing) is a term that rose in popularity during the 2024 US Presidential election to describe the practice of minimizing or explaining some of the bizarre rhetoric from Donald Trump (this is often tied to a critique of "the media").

According to Wikipedia, it originated on a Reddit forum in 2020.

The sentiment that the media has been sanewashing Donald Trump and his campaign perhaps shifted a little with the coverage of Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden on 27 October 2024. The headline from a NYT article covering the event read Trump at the Garden: A Closing Carnival of Grievances, Misogyny and Racism.

A sawbuck is slang for a $10 bill. Likewise, a double-sawbuck is a $20 bill.

It has been suggested that the slang originated because a sawbuck (sawhorse) resembles an "X," the Roman numeral for "10."

I came across this slang while watching For All Mankind, S3E2.

Something that is specious is superficially plausible, but actually wrong.

You know how there are some words that you know would fit exactly what you're trying to communicate, but you can never remember them? This is one of those words for me.

The Latin speciosus means "beautiful" (or "plausible"). According to Merriam-Webster, in Middle English the word specious was used to mean "attractive." Over time, however, the word was used to denote a fake or superficial beauty.

I don't usually hear this word being used to represent a false-beauty, but more in rhetoric. A specious argument is a type of argument that seems to be good at first glance, but is actually fallacious.

A spoonerism is a slip-up in speech in which the person talking transposes the first part of two words. For example, saying "shake a tower" instead of "take a shower." The word is named after Reverend William Archibald Spooner (1844–1930) who, apparently, this happened to often.

I came across this while listening to an episode of The Allusionist which discussed an old puzzle novel called "Cain's Jawbone." Among the many word-based challenges in this puzzle novel are spoonerisms which the player must identify in order to put the pages in the right order.

From Wikipedia:

Stigmergy was first observed in social insects. For example, ants exchange information by laying down pheromones (the trace) on their way back to the nest when they have found food. In that way, they collectively develop a complex network of trails, connecting the nest in an efficient way to various food sources. When ants come out of the nest searching for food, they are stimulated by the pheromone to follow the trail towards the food source. The network of trails functions as a shared external memory for the ant colony.

Update:

In May 2026 I watched an episode of True Facts that had to do with how honey bees build honeycomb structures -- part of this process has to do with stigmergy. ^[1] Note: True Facts is an often irreverent show, but behind the jokes there he has some really interesting content.

Stochastic parrot is a term coined by Emily M. Bender, Timnit Gebru, et al. in a 2021 paper on the ethical risks of large language models called "On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? 🦜."

It refers to how large language models generate text by probabilistically predicting the next word based on patterns learned from massive datasets, rather than understanding or reasoning like a human. The metaphor highlights how such systems mimic language without genuine comprehension.

In December 2022, shortly after ChatGPT was released, Sam Altman of OpenAI tweeted, "i am a stochastic parrot, and so r u."

Stochastic parrot was a 2023 American Dialect Society "Word of the Year."

Tactical frivolity is a form of political protest that uses humor and absurdity as deliberate tactics to undermine authority, defuse tension, and attract public attention.

The term dates back to the 1990s with movements like Reclaim the Streets ^[2] in the UK and groups like the Pink Fairies who protested the 27th G8 summit in Genoa.

In October 2025, the term is also being used to describe protests directed toward ICE in Portland with some protesters dressing in costumes.

A trial balloon is a metaphorical term describing a tentative action or statement meant to test reactions or explore possibilities before committing to a course of action. It's often used in diplomacy, politics, and awkward social situations, where one wants to gauge sentiment or diffuse tension without directly confronting the issue.

The phrase originates from the early days of hot-air ballooning in the late 18th century. British aeronauts would send up small, unmanned balloons as trial balloons to assess weather conditions, wind direction, and other factors before launching a manned flight. By the mid-19th century, the term was being used figuratively, particularly in politics, where governments or individuals would "float" proposals through unofficial channels to gauge public opinion before formally committing. Over time, it came to describe any cautious, preliminary step taken to assess outcomes.

I first heard this term in an interview with Bill Hader on the Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes) podcast. Hader shared a story about embarrassing himself by badmouthing a movie to someone who starred in it. To mend the social faux pas, he waited an hour and floated a trial balloon by saying, "Um, hey, they’re grilling some chicken over there."

He shared this awkward story with Larry David, who, of course, loved it -- particularly the hilariously ineffectual nature of the "trial balloon" attempt -- and encouraged him to repeat it often.

Tribology is the scientific study of friction, lubrication, and wear between interacting surfaces in relative motion. It blends principles from mechanical engineering, materials science, chemistry, and physics.

The word was coined in 1966 by British mechanical engineer Peter Jost in a report to the UK government titled "Lubrication (Tribology) - A Report on the Present Position and Industry’s Needs". The word is formed from the Greek root tribos meaning rubbing.

During a trip with my brother, he told me about a tribological analysis his firm performed along with a write-up they published and this is how I was introduced to the term.

While looking up the origins of the word tribology, I thought it would fit perfect in an episode of Archer. The characters often use absurdly niche references followed by incredulity when nobody knows the reference.

[Scene: ISIS HQ hallway, someone slips slightly on a recently waxed floor]

Lana: Whoa -- can we not buff the floors like an Olympic luge track?

Archer: Who are you, Peter Jost?

Lana: Who?

Archer: Peter Jost? The father of tribology??

[Everyone stares blankly]

Archer (muttering): Seriously guys, read a book! Well, actually an obscure UK lubrication report from 1966.

Trust, but verify is a maxim popularized by US President Ronald Reagon during the Cold War in the 1980s. It's US-origin comes from the Russian proverb, "doveryai, no proveryai." Reagon repeated this frequently during meetings leading up to the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

More recently the phrase has evolved to never trust, always verify (i.e. "Zero Trust") in cybersecurity circles, due to increased risks. ^[2]

In February of 2026, on the subject of Iran nuclear treaties, Netanyahu gave the message to Trump: "Distrust. Distrust, and always verify." ^[3]