Vocabulary
Because of its multi-national readership and the ever changing meaning of words, Number Watch offers this simple vocabulary as an aid to understanding. Words will be added from time to time as necessity dictates.
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Alcohol |
The second most evil substance in human history |
| Alcoholic | Someone who drinks more than you |
| Begging the question | See Petitio principii |
| BMA | Bloody Mendacious and Arrogant |
| Botulinus toxin | A benign substance injected into the faces of toxiphobiac Californian women |
| Bureaucrat | One who designs hoops for others to jump through |
| California | (c.f. Schizophrenia) State of Insanity involving divorce from reality |
| Cancer | Serious disease solely caused by a politically incorrect lifestyle |
| Carbon | Once the basis of life on earth. Now Original Sin. |
| Carbon dioxide | The third most deadly substance in human history |
| Caruba | Venomous snake inclined to sink its fangs into the buttocks of asses |
| Circular argument | See Begging the question |
| Climate change | HIWTYL (q.v.) version of Global Warming |
| Coma | A mental state between daytime TV and death |
| Computer model | Automated fantasy |
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Conservative |
An almost extinct species (c.f. coelacanth) |
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conservative |
One blind to the advantages of destructive revolution |
| Conservative principle, The | If it ain't broke don't fix it |
| coursework | That part of a pupil's work done by parents, teachers and friends |
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Cynicism |
A visual defect caused by the intrusion of reality |
| DAISNAID | (political) Do as I say, not as I do. |
| DEFRA | MAFF (The name has been changed to protect the guilty) |
| Degree | Certificate of attendance |
| Democracy | Oppression of the majority by the largest minority |
| Depression | A heightened sense of reality |
| Earth summit | The high point to which hot air rises |
| Economist | One with a ready explanation as to why his last prediction was so wrong |
| Education | Indoctrination |
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Election |
A mechanism by which media moguls select governments |
| Environment | A conceptual basis for taxation and coercion |
| Environmentalism | Institutionalised misanthropy |
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Epidemiologist |
One who knows that A causes B (where A is nice and B nasty) |
| Establishment | Yesterday's rebels |
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Fallacy |
Your beliefs, as opposed to mine |
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Food |
Matter that is deadly except in the most unpalatable forms |
| Fumento | (music) play with fiery indignation following a discordant movement |
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Global Warming |
Grim fairy tale for grown-ups |
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Gore |
A bloody mess associated with horror stories |
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Green |
Originally just naïve, now one with nostalgia for the Stone Age |
| Greenpeace | Red war for the colour blind |
| Gummer | One who gums (i.e. meaches, q.v., but for profit) |
| Hansen | (verb) Promiscuously tamper with data to the point of their becoming meaningless |
| Heorshe | A debased argot used among the politically correct |
| HYCAEI | Have your cake and eat it |
| History | Lies told by victors |
| HIWTYL | Heads I win, tails you lose |
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Hospital |
Hazard from which the populace are protected by a waiting list |
| Humanity | Temporary infestation on the skin of a minor planet of a minor star of a minor galaxy |
| Investment | Pre-election spending spree |
| Kyoto | A form of ritual economic suicide, originating from Japan |
| Law | The chief means by which the rich and powerful oppress the poor and powerless |
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Lawyer |
A sorcerer who can conjure money out of nothing |
| Liberal | Authoritarian socialist (USA), woolly-minded opportunist (UK) |
| Life | A sexually transmitted disease, inevitably fatal |
| MAFF | Compound word, from mass and muff (see DEFRA) |
| Man | Suspected rapist or paedophile |
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Market |
Mass hysteria used as a guide to government |
| Meacher | (from verb to meach) One given to dark, wild delusions of horrors yet to come |
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Medicine |
Voodoo with Latin |
| Meta Analysis | Making a strong chain by combining weak links |
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Metastudy |
From meta (= beyond) and study (= con) |
| Milloy | Unit of junk (threshold of unacceptability) one thousandth of an Oy! |
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Mobile phone |
Deadly instrument that mysteriously failed to kill its billions of users |
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Modernisation |
Mindless change |
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New Labour |
Socialism that recognises its paymasters |
| Obesity | A vile crime that still goes unpunished because of lax laws |
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Old Labour |
New Labour nullified by honesty |
| Opinion poll | Method of measuring the effectiveness of propaganda |
| Optimist | One who receives only unpleasant surprises |
| Organic | Over-priced |
| Organic Farming | Cultivation using only impure chemicals |
| Paradox | A politically incorrect result of observation |
| Peer review | Once quality control, now censorship by a coterie |
| Pessimist | One who never receives unpleasant surprises |
| Petitio principii | See Circular argument |
| Phenology | Highly selective wishful thinking as a substitute for direct measurement |
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Politician |
One with a permanent smile on both his faces |
| Precautionary principle | The death of the human spirit |
| Pro bono publico | For good publicity |
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Professor |
A travelling salesman |
| Proportional representation | Oppression of the majority by the smallest minority |
| Prudence | Post-election tax increases and spending cuts |
| PUTLIAR | (political) Pull up the ladder. I'm all right |
| Recession | Economic downturn entirely due to external factors |
| Recovery | Economic upturn entirely due to government action |
| Renewable | (energy) intermittent, unreliable and costly |
| Research | Manufacture of data to support government prejudice |
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Rodent |
Sacrificial animal in the cult of epidemiology |
| Salt | The fourth most deadly substance known to mankind |
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Scare |
Fictional employment for journalists, lawyers, bureaucrats etc. |
| Scarecrow | Press release by an epidemiologist |
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Scepticism |
A pathological genetic deficiency of credulity |
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Scientist |
A left-over from the age of reason (pre 1982) |
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Significant |
Negligible |
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Socialist |
One who knows what’s best for everyone else |
| Sustainable | (development) Building an environmental paradise on millions of African corpses |
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Thatcherite |
One who knows what’s best for everyone else |
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Tobacco |
The most evil and poisonous substance in the history of mankind |
| Trial | The bamboozling of naïve jurors by smart lawyers |
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University |
Factory for social engineering |
| WIDIMITWEED | What I do is more important than what everyone else does |
| Wind turbine | A white elephant surrounded by dead birds |