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.

Recent Entries:

Tag Cloud eponymous grammar science technology television vocabulary ai acronym internet music comics software podcast slang games quote idiom entomology jargon computer-science netspeak space tipofmytongue politics movie history legal

"Focus on the things that make your beer taste better"

A quote from Jeff Bezos during the 2008 YC Startup School.

Bezos made an analogy between AWS and breweries, at the turn of the 20th century when electricity had just been invented. These early breweries started generating their own power to leverage machines that ran on electricity. Soon, utility companies came along. Newer breweries that were able to just use electricity from the utility companies didn't have the capital expenses of the older breweries and were able to beat them.

I heard of this analogy from the Acquired podcast.


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References:

  1. YouTube: Footage from the '08 Startup School
  2. Acquired: The Playbook: Lessons from 200+ Company Stories

Tags: amazon , aws , bezos , podcast

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COINTELPRO

Short for Counter Intelligence Program, COINTELPRO was a series of covert operations conducted by the FBI from 1956 to 1971 (when it was exposed). Its primary goal was to disrupt, discredit, and neutralize civil rights organizations, political activists, and other groups deemed "subversive" by the government. Targets included Martin Luther King Jr., the Black Panther Party, and anti-Vietnam War protestors.

Though I had some knowledge of the illegal tactics used by the FBI during this era, I first came across the term COINTELPRO after listening to the second season of SNAFU with Ed Helms.


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References:

  1. S2 E1 of SNAFU with Ed Helms: The Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI
  2. FBI Records: The Vault -- COINTELPRO

Tags: podcast

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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."


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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

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Overton window

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.


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References:

  1. Wikipedia: Overton window
  2. Wikipedia: Joseph Overton
  3. Mackinac Center Blog: What is the Overton Window?
  4. Tweet: @elonmusk 20 Mar 2025 - That fresh breeze you feel is the wide open Overton Window

Tags: vocabulary , politics , podcast , eponymous

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Stockdale Paradox

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.


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References:

  1. Wikipedia: James Stockdale
  2. Excerpts from "Good to Great" on the Stockdale Paradox
  3. NYT (The Interview): Ed Yong

Tags: podcast , eponymous , paradox

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argy-bargy

Argy-bargy is British slang for the kind of back-and-forth that accompanies a vigorous argument.

When my brother and I discuss politics, there's always a bit of argy-bargy.

Argy-bargy and the similar argle-bargle appear to have originated in Scottish slang. One can clearly see that the first part of the rhyming pair is formed from the word argue and the second is nonsense... or mumbo-jumbo. This type of word is what's known as a rhyming reduplication (other examples are mumbo-jumbo or okey-dokey).

I first encountered this term while listening to the Aussie host of the podcast Risky Business (#758).


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References:

  1. The Atlantic: The Brouhaha Behind 'Argle Bargle': A Linguistic Explanation
  2. Definition: argy-bargy
  3. Risky Business #758

Tags: slang , vocabulary , podcast

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bespoke reality

"Bespoke realities" is a term used by David French in a NYT op-ed. The op-ed describes a phenomenon that is bigger (and perhaps more dangerous) than quirky little "confined" conspiracy theories.

There is a fundamental difference between, on the one hand, someone who lives in the real world but also has questions about the moon landing and, on the other, a person who believes the Covid vaccines are responsible for a vast number of American deaths and Jan. 6 was an inside job and the American elite is trying to replace the electorate with new immigrant voters and the 2020 election was rigged and Donald Trump is God’s choice to save America.

Such individuals don’t simply believe in a conspiracy theory or theories. They live in a “bespoke reality.” That brilliant term comes from my friend Renée DiResta, the technical research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, and it refers to the effects of what DiResta calls a “Cambrian explosion of bubble realities,” communities “that operate with their own norms, media, trusted authorities and frameworks of facts.”

-- French, David. Welcome to Our New ‘Bespoke Realities', NYT, 30 Nov 2023

I heard reference to this on a Hard Fork podcast episode on which Renée DiResta was a guest, A Surgeon General Warning, The Disinformation Battle and The Rise of CryptoPACs, 21 Jun 2024.


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References:

  1. NYT: Welcome to Our New ‘Bespoke Realities’
  2. Our ‘Bespoke Realities’
  3. Hard Fork: A Surgeon General Warning, The Disinformation Battle and The Rise of CryptoPACs
  4. Renée DiResta - home page
  5. Stanford Internet Observatory

Tags: op-ed , disinformation , podcast

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borked

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.


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References:

  1. Definition: bork
  2. Quartz: The Oxford English Dictionary is adding new words based on your workplace jargon
  3. 99% Invisible -- Episode 634: Food Deserts
  4. Wikipedia: Robert Bork

Tags: slang , politics , podcast , eponymous

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grumbletonian

This archaic word was used to describe someone who was discontent, i.e. someone who grumbles a lot. The origins of the word are in 17th century English politics.

I heard the word in an episode of the podcast The Allusionist.


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References:

  1. Podcast: The Allusionist - Episode 193: Word Play 3: Lemon Demon
  2. Definition: grumbletonian

Tags: slang , vocabulary , podcast

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orthosomnia

Orthosomnia is an obsession with getting "perfect" sleep. The word was coined in a 2017 article in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine titled Orthosomnia: Are Some Patients Taking the Quantified Self Too Far?

We termed this condition “orthosomnia,” with “ortho” meaning straight or correct, and “somnia” meaning sleep, because patients are preoccupied or concerned with improving or perfecting their wearable sleep data. We chose this term because the perfectionist quest to achieve perfect sleep is similar to the unhealthy preoccupation with healthy eating, termed orthorexia.

I first encountered this term while listening to an episode of The Guardian's Science Weekly podcast called Is sleep perfectionism making us more exhausted?


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References:

  1. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine; Volume 13, Issue 02
  2. Science Weekly: Is sleep perfectionism making us more exhausted?
  3. Wikipedia: Orthosomnia

Tags: vocabulary , podcast

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