Lexical Compendium

Surprise Me

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

inkhorn term

An inkhorn term is one that is pretentious or overly ornate (often words from Latin or Greek).

An "inkhorn" was how ink was carried by scholars and clerks in the 1500s. The metaphor suggests that such words come from the scholar’s desk rather than natural speech.

Ironically, some words which historically were derided as inkhorn terms are now rather mundane and commonplace... including the word mundane.

Example:

Sally loved to flaunt her giant vocabulary, peppering every conversation with inkhorn terms that left her friends reaching for a dictionary.


(link to this entry)

References:

  1. Wikipedia: Inkhorn Term
  2. World Wide Words Blog: Inkhorn Terms

Tags: jargon , vocabulary

Date Added:

interregnum

  1. A period when normal government is suspended, especially between successive reigns or regimes.
  2. An interval or pause between two periods of office or other things.

As in:

...the interregnum between the discovery of radioactivity and its detailed understanding.

or:

You are a weak monarch in a dangerous interregnum.

The latter comes from a line of dialog from the character Gerri in the television series "Succession"


(link to this entry)

References:

  1. Definition: interregnum
  2. succession-season-4-episode-6-recap - episode recap from thewrap.com

Tags: television , vocabulary

Date Added: Unknown
Date Modified:

jawbone

"Jawboning" is a political technique in which statements are made by persons of authority in order how to influence public perception or behavior without making formal policy changes.


(link to this entry)

References:

  1. Definition: jawbone
  2. U.S. jobs report: These numbers have economists jawboning - news article using the word "jawboning"

Tags: politics , vocabulary

Date Added:

Jevons Paradox

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.


(link to this entry)

References:

  1. Wikipedia: Jevons Paradox
  2. Planet Money: Why the AI world is suddenly obsessed with a 160-year-old economics paradox
  3. Reuters: Europe's AI bulls pin hopes on 'Jevons Paradox' after DeepSeek rout
  4. Tweet: @satyanadella 26 Jan 2025
  5. DeepSeek
  6. DeepSeek-V3 Technical Report

Tags: eponymous , ai

Date Added:

kayfabe

Kayfabe is the convention of presenting staged performances as genuine or authentic. The word is used primarily in the world of wrestling, but it is also used more generally to just mean a fake presentation. I heard the word being used in the context of politics to describe President Trump and lying.

The exact etymology of the word is uncertain, but there are theories that it is slang (perhaps somewhat Pig Latin-ized) for "be fake." [2]


(link to this entry)

References:

  1. Wikipedia: Kayfabe
  2. Merriam Webster word origin: Kayfabe

Tags: politics , vocabulary

Date Added:

Leahy Law

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.


(link to this entry)

References:

  1. Wikipedia: Leahy Law
  2. Washington Post: I created the Leahy law. It should be applied to Israel - An op-ed by Patrick Leahy, author of the Leahy Law.

Tags: international , legal , leahy , eponymous

Date Added:
Date Modified:

leitmotif

A leitmotif is a recurring theme, idea, or motif that runs through a work, often associated with a particular character, concept, or situation. The term originates from German Leitmotiv, meaning "leading motif" and was used to describe Wagner's characteristic association of a melody to a character.

I was introduced to this term while watching Music by John Williams. In the documentary, George Lucas describes how he wanted John to create a theme for each of the characters in Star Wars.


(link to this entry)

References:

  1. Definition: leitmotif
  2. Music by John Williams - Documentary on Disney+
  3. Wikipedia: Leitmotif
  4. IMDB: Music by John Williams

Tags: music , vocabulary

Date Added:

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 , eponymous , podcast , social

Date Added:
Date Modified:

litotes

Do you have the habit of expressing a positive statement by negating its opposite (or vice-versa)? For example, saying something is "Not bad" when you mean that it's good?

This is called a litotes (pronounced LIE-tuh-teez). The word comes from the Greek lítotēs, meaning simplicity. Litotes can be used to soften something, i.e. saying "I'm not bad at this" seems less boastful than saying "I'm pretty good at this." It can also be used for humorous effect, for example saying "I don't hate it!" instead of saying that you like something.


(link to this entry)

References:

  1. Wikipedia: Litotes
  2. Definition: litotes

Tags: tipofmytongue , vocabulary , grammar

Date Added:

metonymy

A metonymy is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is substituted with another closely associated with it. For example, in the sentence "Hey, who are all the suits?" the word suit is a metonymy for "business people."

The word comes from the Greek metōnymía, meaning "a change of name."

I heard the word in an episode of PBS' Otherwords.


(link to this entry)

References:

  1. YouTube: Otherwords - The Ancient Origins of Body Words
  2. Wikipedia: Metonymy
  3. grammarly.com blog entry - Metonymy: How to Use This Literary Device

Tags: grammar , vocabulary , tipofmytongue

Date Added:
Date Modified: