This page is dedicated to words and phrases I've come across
or made up. If you'd like to contribute to this page, I've included a
form at the bottom for submissions. Consider this
the SyddWare equivalent of Abrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary.
The following is a list of definitions centered around a term we coined for no
apparent reason over the course of a project development. These were
contributed by me and my co-workers who now use them daily and have actually
replaced use of the F-word with these kinder, gentler replacements. Should this
catch on, I wish to take full credit for starting the ball rolling. Use one
(hork) to foul up - '90's version of SNAFU - (origin: Ren
Hoëk of the Ren and Stimpy Show) - also spelled hork, the
spelling I'll hereafter use. As you'll find, this word very nicely serves as a
"mixed company" replacement for the F-word. Yes I've even used it in
front of my mom. SNAHU?
one who horks - thing that can cause a hork
messed up, broken
vicinity of the problem
a 'mob hit' on code - like a purchased killing only for software - applying
large group of people horking things up in a complicated but concerted
the end product of a horkestra
place to go to deal in horkings
"Hork, the herald angels sing"
Songful exclamation of yuletide joy sung by a horkestra during the annual
12-day holiday horkfest
(adv) - A verb modifier used to indicate that an action is being
pursued in a manner which will result in horkage. (E.g, "Arthur, you are
programming horkingly today")
(n) - The end-product of excessive horking, characterized by horked
code which takes on a life of its own.
(n) See horkestra
(n) See Sybase
(adj) - Activity predisposed to a horked-up result
(n) - Place where horkage occurs
(n) - The culmination of months of excessive horking when all the
horkanisms achieve critical mass and revolve in a counter-clockwise fashion,
sucking up all those responsible for the horking. Horkanes are typically given
formal names. Oh and below the equator they spin the other way. They don't
exist at the equator as too many beverages with little paper umbrellas are
being consumed there.
(n) - A pronged tool used to restrain a horkanism. Useless against a
fully developed horkane.
The Incredible Hork
(n) - Few have tried, many more have succeeded
Common refrain of the horker
Doin' the Horky Porky
badly cooking spare ribs
a month long celebration of unruly horkers, characterized by large amounts
of broken things and phlegm-infested hairballs - fun for the whole family
an insult commonly used amongst horkers - typical rejoinder contains
hork up a hairball
to really hork something up (see FUBAR and its lesser cousin HUBAR)
the great god of horking, as in "Hey Steeempy, deed you just Hork up
another Hairball?!?", or "Steeempy, you eeediot!!! You horked up
a favorite role-model for wanna-be horkers
the measure of a person's or group of person's ability to hork something up
[Submited by Kevin T.
the genus of species that, in general, horks things up [Editor's Note: No word yet on how many species actually make up
this genus; study continues.]
[Submited by Kevin T.
horkan factors engineering
the application of science to safegaurd against the actions of horkans
[Submited by Kevin T.
appropriate, impropriate; assume, possess oneself of; take possession of;
commandeer; lay one's hands on, clap one's hands on; help oneself to; make free
with, dip one's hands into, lay under contribution; intercept; scramble for;
deprive of; take off, carry off, bear off; adeem; abstract; hurry off with, run
away with; abduct; steal; ravish; seize; pounce upon, spring upon; swoop to,
swoop down upon; take by storm, take by assault; snatch, reave; snap up, nip
up, whip up, catch up; kidnap, crimp, capture, lay violent hands on; get hold
of, lay hold of, take hold of, catch hold of, lay fast hold of, take firm hold
of; lay by the heels, take prisoner; fasten upon, grip, grapple, embrace,
gripe, clasp, grab, clutch, collar, throttle, take by the throat, claw, clinch,
clench, make sure of. catch at, jump at, make a grab at, snap at, snatch at;
reach, make a long arm, stretch forth one's hand. take from, take away from;
disseize; deduct; retrench; dispossess, ease one of, snatch from one's grasp;
tear from, tear away from, wrench from, wrest from, wring from; extort; deprive
of, bereave; disinherit, cut off with a shilling. oust; divest; levy, distrain,
confiscate; sequester, sequestrate; accroach; unsurp; despoil, strip, fleece,
shear, displume, impoverish, eat out of house and home; drain, drain to the
dregs; gut, dry, exhaust, swallow up; absorb; draw off; suck the blood of, suck
like a leech.
to barrow for a long period of time [Editor's Note: Well
that's clear. When I checked my desk ref., the word barrow
only showed up as a noun, including but not limited to
male hog castrated.]
[Submited by Dave
excessive group horking, usually performed while standing in a circle.
[Submited by Chuck
n. Person who needs to lighten up, judging from this email message we received.
Seems like someone at his workplace apparently struck a nerve: Recently your page was printed and posted at my work. As you can tell my REAL last name is in
fact Horky, a name that I carry with pride. But thanks to your fucked up site it is likely going to
cost three people their reputations and possiblely their jobs if I have my way. Do the world a favor
and pull your site, Because there is nothing worth a shit on it.
Sure Ken, we'll take this page down right away. You finally caught us, this whole thing's been up over
ten years with the express intent of making fun of your family name, and of you personally. Oh and we'll
get started right away on removing all other web sites on the internet that might offend you so that
nobody who knows how to get your goat can find them on the internet and place a printed copy where you
might see it. People are so hard to control, we wish you every success in seeing to it that only those
you can control are left as your coworkers. Perhaps you can help us narrow the list of sites to be removed
by telling us what you're into besides talking dirty, and maybe what religious and other groups don't
offend you, then we'll work on removing the rest. We'll start with the
Urban Dictionary's ironic definition
posted for the word horky.-ed.
The only correct way to fix a hork is to use a kluge - this will
not fix the problem, but only mask it until such time as another manifestation
rears it's hairless south-of-the-border yapping rat-like head. Gives the horker
time to flee to the safety of the horkery.
Henny Youngman Solution
(n) This is the name of the solution to a problem whereby avoiding
doing the thing that causes the problem is what is advocated as the solution.
Often used in solving software and hardware development problems in our experience.
Derives from the old Henny Youngman [1906-1998, King of the One Liners] joke
that goes as follows:
The patient says, "Doctor, it hurts when I do this."
The doctor replies, "Then don't do that !"
(n) Daddies are a bumpy ride.
(n) The unit of humor by which a remark or joke can be rated. This,
though probably not original, was our scale of measurement. The answer of 6
humes was always ambiguous since it was forbidden to specify an upper or lower
bound; assume a scale of 1 to 10 and you miss the point. We stayed away from
Douglas Addams' 42 so it was always 6. Usually values were descriptive rather
than numerical: mojo humes. And whereever possible provided mixed signals. Sort
of like the comment "it doesn't suck" which, although positive has
heavy negative connotations. These were usually first and last used at the
defining moment. In other words, the hume value was always spontaneously
provided by the humor itself. Sort of like a "callback" in standup,
they always had that "you hadda be there" quality to them rendering
them obsolete the second the laughter stopped.
[Quoted from Adam Corolla on LoveLine - submitted by someone at
the U of MD]
Another scale we came up with in my school days was a heat register
defining outside temperature. It was not verbal but gestural. Hold your hand
out flat, palm up. Now curl up your fingers and draw your thumb in next to your
palm. If you had two golf balls you'd be able to hold them in the little cup
you've created with your fingers. Imagine a part of the male anatomy about that
size, two actually. They normally reside in a device that expands and contracts
with temperature. Thus, when it's real hot, you form this gesture with your
hand and let it drop low. When it's really cold, you'd raise it up and even
squeeze the fingers closer together to illustrate, uh, a contraction sort of
A "What's it like out?" query would evoke, aside from the predictable
verbal "I don't know, I haven't had it out yet." response, the
gestural response reflective of the temperature outside. Depending upon how
cold it is outside, you might even get a grimace of acknowledgement from the
querying party and an "Oh" in a high pitched voice.
(n) a measure of height - used to determine the exact height of an
ice cream cone.
(n) One of my credos is "Kids love slapstick." You want to
make any kid smile or even laugh? Pratfalls, slapstick, general stooge fare:
never fails. Warning: Oddly, this tends to make them want to hurt you, all in
good fun of course. Men: wear a cup.
spew, spewage, spewing
polite version of bull sh**
bragging; telling tall tales
So, I told Cindy Crawford that I'd have to cut our date short, because
Anna Nicole Smith was waiting for me, said Dilbert.
Quit your spewing, chided Dogbert. [Editor's Note: I added the word "chided" because
it's not often I get to use it.]
[Submited by Bruce
someone that has done absolutely nothing, but you just need to call them a
[Submited by Mike
(adj) - marked by rapid and unpredictable changeableness of mood.
"I'd fire that mercurial, self-indulgent prima donna in an instant,"
the director insisted, "if she weren't such a brilliant actress!"
This is an actual word, look it up.
What make sthis funny to me is that I once worked a project that utilized
between 1 and 4 VME-bus based Intel i860
based floating processor boards containing up to 4 i860 processors each and up
to 128Mb RAM made by Mercury Computer Systems Inc, the predecessor to their
RACE line of products (which is probably also ancient history now, who knows).
During the early days of code/test,
non-Mercury-developing personnel were invited to use the platform on which the
boards and code resided "at their own risk". It was not uncommon for
a simple coding mistake to crash the entire Sun platform due to lack of program
address space protections enjoyed by UNIX programmers. Thus we tended to consider
the boards to be mecurial, even though at the time we never knew this word existed.
Perhaps we considered the boards unpredictable unjustly as it was our code that made them
that way, at least in the early days. Its origin relates to the Roman god Mercury who,
while active, spritely and swift, was also considered fickle and prone to sudden unpredictable change.
Got a word you've coined? A term for which you have a special definition?
Submit it to us and we'll add it to this page. Once the page gets big enough,
we'll reorganize it into a more dictionary-like format. Provide your email
address and/or URL for your homepage and we'll include a link.
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