Dictionary

Sometimes I forget good words.

Term	Meaning
Allemannsretten	The right to roam. Everyone is allowed on all land under certain circumstances.
Arsonist-Firefighter	A person who deliberately creates problems or crises and then takes credit for resolving them, often to gain attention or praise.
Autoantonym	A word or phrase which means one thing and also its opposite.
Avaunt	Forward, away.
Baby talk	Humoring the baby.
Bon mot	The exact, appropriate word.
Bonhomie	Good humor.
Bootlicker	A person who behaves in a servile or obsequious manner.
Brandolini's law	Every sentence of bullshit requires a paragraph of reason to debunk.
Bread and games	Superficial appeasements.
Bulverism	Assuming your opponent is wrong and working backwards from there to determine how they're wrong using circular logic.
Crikey	Corruption of “christ kill me.”
Crypto-fascism	Obfuscated fascism.
De facto	In actuality.
De jure	By right.
Deep-six	Eliminate.
Defamiliarization	The artistic technique of presenting to audiences common things in an unfamiliar or strange way in order to enhance perception of the familiar.
Déformation professionnelle	Viewing things through the lens of a profession.
Delta	Get out.
Deontology	A theory that suggests actions are good or bad according to a clear set of rules.
Depersonalization	Depersonalization can consist of a detachment within the self, regarding one's mind or body, or being a detached observer of oneself.
Detente	The easing of hostilities.
Diegetic	Details about the world itself and the experiences of its characters are revealed explicitly through narrative.
Double Empathy	A concept suggesting that communication difficulties between neurodivergent and neurotypical individuals arise from mutual misunderstandings, rather than a deficit in empathy on one side.
Dudgeon	A fit or state of indignation – often used in the phrase “in high dudgeon.”
Duende	A quality of passion and inspiration.
Epistemology	Theory of knowledge with regard to its validity.
Exogenous	Relating to or developing from external factors.
Extrinsic inducement	Bizarre faith that people cannot be motivated by the task itself but need external compensations for doing so. It is told some people give cash to children who read a book. Some pay them in slices of pizza. Everything is a job.
Failson	Middle- or upper-class man who is incompetent but has a financial safety net.
Fait accompli	A foregone conclusion.
Filial Piety	When a person is a sycophant for their relations.
Flaneur	Saunterer.
Flibbertigibbet	A frivolous, flighty, or excessively talkative person.
FYIGM	Fuck you, I got mine.
Gendarme	Armed police.
Germane	Relevant.
HIWTYL	Heads I win, tails you lose.
Hypergraphia	Obsession with writing or drawing.
Impolitic	Failing to possess or display prudence; unwise.
Inculcate	To instill by repetition.
Intertwingled	A portmanteau of “intertwined” and “intermingled.”
Invisible Hand	Supposed unintentional social benefits of self-interested actions.
Jamais vu	A French borrowing meaning "never seen", refers to the phenomenon of experiencing a situation that one recognizes in some fashion, but nonetheless seems very unfamiliar.
Jejune	Naive, simplistic, superficial.
Ken	n. one's range of knowledge or sight / v. know
Knoll	To arrange objects in parallel or 90º angles.
Kompromat	Compromising material.
L'appel du vide	The call of the void.
Malefactor	Someone who causes problems on purpose.
Marketing	Weaponized FOMO.
MECE	Mutually exclusive, cumulatively exhaustive.
Memetic warfare	Platform weaponization using memes.
Microcelebrity	One who gains a cult or mainstream following due to viral internet distribution.
Milieu	A person’s social environment.
Missing stair	A metaphor for a person within a social group who many people know is untrustworthy or otherwise has to be “managed.”
Mu	A monk asked Joshu, “Does a dog have the Buddha nature?” Joshu retorted, “Mu!”
Negative capability	The willingness to embrace uncertainty, live with mystery, and make peace with ambiguity.
Neoliberal	Capitalist.
Noblesse oblige	The inferred responsibility of privileged people to act with generosity and nobility toward those less privileged.
Normative	What academics say when they mean “normal.”
OODA loop	Observe, orient, decide, act.
Opportunist	Someone who doesn’t take sides because they’re waiting to see who comes out on top.
Outrage porn	Media designed to drive traffic based on outrage.
Panoply	A complete or impressive collection of things.
Pareidolia	Sensing a pattern where there isn’t one.
Pascal‘s Mugging	Some very unlikely outcomes may have very great utilities, and these utilities can grow faster than the probability diminishes. Hence the agent should focus more on vastly improbable cases with implausibly high rewards; this leads first to counter-intuitive choices, and then to incoherence as the utility of every choice becomes unbounded.
PDQ	Pretty Damned Quick.
Pfui	German (original) “phooey.”
Peremptory	Insisting on immediate attention or obedience.
Perfectionism	Imposter syndrome but for one’s labors.
Performative	Done in order to create an impression.
Perseverance porn	Painting status quo resilience as heroism.
Petite bourgeoisie	People who aspire to join the ruling class, see Bootlickers.
Pettifogging	Placing undue emphasis on petty details.
Phenomenology	Study of subjects regarded as subjective through objective lenses.
Platform weaponization	A form or type of information warfare and psychological warfare involving the unaccounted for potential or actual actions that result in outside agents (Physical or digital in nature) leveraging a technology platform to serve ends that run counter to those of the intended use for the system.
Positive reinforcement	Process by which we communicate to the child “whatever you just did is not worth doing if not for the reward, the tender word or gesture. Synonym: manipulation.”
Premium mediocre	Mediocre with just an irrelevant touch of premium, not enough to ruin the delicious essential mediocrity.
Preux	Chivalrous, gallant.
Procrustean	Used to describe situations where an arbitrary standard is used to measure success, while completely disregarding obvious harm that results from the effort.
Psychohistory	The study of the psychological motivations of historical events.
Psychometric	A field of study concerned with the theory and technique of psychological measurement.
Race to the Bottom	The repeated sacrifice of quality in pursuit of competitive pricing.
Rote	Learning by doing as opposed to understanding.
Rubato	Rhythmic flexibility within a phrase or measure; a relaxation of strict time.
Saber rattling	Being threatening with the intention of inciting terror.
Samizdat	Copying and distributing banned materials.
Sandbagger	An individual who deliberately underperforms or downplays their abilities to gain an advantage or to exceed expectations later.
Sangfroid	Self-possession or imperturbability especially under strain.
Savoir Faire	The ability to act according to the situation at hand.
Schelling point	A solution people gravitate to because it seems natural, special, or relevant.
School-to-prison pipeline	The disproportionate tendency of minors and young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds to become incarcerated, because of increasingly harsh school and municipal policies.
Schrodinger’s douchebag	If my actions have consequences, I was just kidding.
Seidr	Magic related to seeing and shaping the future.
Skosh	A small amount.
Strewth	Corruption of “god’s truth.”
Synecdoche	A figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole, as in Chicago being short for Chicago Bears.
Taxonomic	Concerned with classification.
Telos	Ultimate objective.
Virtue signaling	Performative behavior with the intention of demonstrating moral correctness.
Witchhunter	One who practices prejudice through bulverism.
Zounds	Corruption of “god’s wounds.”
Zugzwang	When any move worsens your position, but you must make a move.
ĉu ne?	Isn’t it so? in Esperanto.