From: Warrl kyree Tale'sedrin (warrl@blarg.net)
Date: Mon Dec 15 1997 - 23:27:20 MST
> From: Philos Anthropy <anthropy@inwave.com>
> > What does TANSTAAFL! mean and what is a fnord?
TANSTAAFL is an acronym which most people get from Robert Heinlein's
book "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" or from another source derivative
therefrom. I don't know if Heinlein originated it or not. It stands
for:
There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch
Fnord is, in the Wilson/Shea trilogy "Illuminatus", a meaningless
word that is printed scattered through the text of most published
matter. In the world of this fantasy/science-fiction/parody series,
children are trained using hypnotic techniques to not see this word.
This creates a conflict within the brain, a source of stress. The
authorities (the ones that are aware of the fnords) control the
reader's reaction to any printed matter by controlling the ratio of
fnords to other words -- something completely free of fnords is so
unusual that a positive emotional reaction is virtually guaranteed,
whereas anything critical of the government is guaranteed to contain
a lot of fnords to generate a strong negative reaction.
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