Lexical Compendium

Wait... what is this? Sometimes I come across a word, phrase, idiom, quote, reference, bit of slang, person of interest, etc that either I don't know or I find amusing, interesting, etc. This is a collection of those items so that I can refer back to them in emails, texts, etc.

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Lindy's Law

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."


(link to this entry)

References:

  1. Podcast: Breaking Points - Krystal And Saagar DEBATE Lab Grown Meat BAN - 07 May 2024
  2. Wikipedia: Lindy Effect
  3. Wikipedia: Antifragile (book) - in this book, Nassim Nicholas Taleb tweaked Lindy's Law some and coined the "Lindy Effect."
  4. The New Republic: Lindy’s Law - published in 1964
  5. Physica A: Lindy's Law (abstract) - Volume 486, 15 Nov 2017, Iddo Eliazar, Pages 797-805

Tags: lindy effect, podcast, eponymous, social

Date Added: 21 May 2024
Date Modified: 08 Jul 2025