"Fnord" () is a word coined in 1965 by

Kerry Thornley Kerry Wendell Thornley (April 17, 1938 – November 28, 1998) was an American author. He is known as the co-founder (along with childhood friend Greg Hill) of Discordianism, in which context he is usually known as Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst or sim ...

and Greg Hill in the Discordian religious text ''

Principia Discordia The ''Principia Discordia'' is the first published Discordianism, Discordian religious text. It was written by Greg Hill (Malaclypse the Younger) with Kerry Wendell Thornley (Lord Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst) and others. The first edition was printed ...

''. It entered into

popular culture Popular culture (also called pop culture or mass culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of cultural practice, practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as popular art

f. pop art F is the sixth letter of the Latin alphabet. F may also refer to: Science and technology Mathematics * F or f, the number 15 (number), 15 in hexadecimal and higher positional systems * ''p'F'q'', the hypergeometric function * F-distributi ...

or mass art, sometimes contraste ...

after appearing in ''

The Illuminatus! Trilogy ''The Illuminatus! Trilogy'' is a series of three novels by American writers Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, first published in 1975.''Illuminatus!'' was written between 1969 and 1971, but not published until 1975 according to Robert Anto ...

'' (1975) of novels written by

Robert Shea Robert Joseph Shea (February 14, 1933 – March 10, 1994) was an American novelist and former journalist best known as co-author with Robert Anton Wilson of the science fantasy trilogy '' Illuminatus!'' It became a cult success and was later turn ...

and

Robert Anton Wilson Robert Anton Wilson (born Robert Edward Wilson; January 18, 1932 – January 11, 2007) was an American writer, futurist, psychologist, and self-described agnostic mystic. Recognized within Discordianism as an Episkopos, pope and saint, Wilson ...

. Here, the interjection "fnord" is given

hypnotic A hypnotic (from Ancient Greek, Greek ''Hypnos'', sleep), also known as a somnifacient or soporific, and commonly known as sleeping pills, are a class of psychoactive drugs whose primary function is to sleep induction, induce sleep and to trea ...

power over the unenlightened, and children in

grade school A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

are taught to be unable to see the word consciously. For the rest of their lives, every appearance of the word subconsciously generates a feeling of unease and confusion which prevents rational consideration of the text in which it appears.

Other uses

The word has been used in

newsgroup A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are not only discussion groups or conversations, but also a repository to publish articles, start ...

and

hacker culture The hacker culture is a subculture of individuals who enjoy—often in collective effort—the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming the limitations of software systems or electronic hardware (mostly digital electronics), ...

to indicate irony, humor, or

Surrealism Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

.Raymond, Eric S. (1996
''The New Hacker's Dictionary.''
MIT Press, p. 196. Placement at the end of a statement in brackets (''fnord'') explicitly tags the intent, and may be so applied to any random or surreal sentence, coercive subtext, or anything jarringly out of context, intentional or not. It is sometimes used as a

metasyntactic variable A metasyntactic variable is a specific word or set of words identified as a placeholder in computer science and specifically computer programming. These words are commonly found in source code and are intended to be modified or substituted before ...

in programming.Bautts, T., Dawson, T. & Purdy G. (2005
''Linux Network Administrator's Guide''.

O'Reilly O'Reilly () is a common Irish surname. The O'Reillys were historically the kings of East Bréifne in what is today County Cavan. The clan were part of the Connachta's Uí Briúin Bréifne kindred and were closely related to the Ó Ruairc ( ...

, p. 64. Fnord appears in the

Church of the SubGenius The Church of the SubGenius is a parody religion that satirizes better-known belief systems. It teaches a complex philosophy that focuses on J. R. "Bob" Dobbs, purportedly a salesman from the 1950s, who is revered as a prophet by the Church. SubGen ...

recruitment film ''Arise!'' and has been used in the SubGenius newsgroup alt.slack.

Origins

The word was coined as a nonsensical term with religious undertones in the Discordian parody of

religious text Religious texts, including scripture, are texts which various religions consider to be of central importance to their religious tradition. They often feature a compilation or discussion of beliefs, ritual practices, moral commandments and ...

s ''Principia Discordia'' (1965), by Kerry Thornley and Greg Hill, but was popularized by ''

'' (1975) of

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual arts, visual, literature, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently Nonfiction, non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ...

conspiracy fiction The conspiracy thriller (or paranoid thriller) is a subgenre of thriller fiction. The protagonists of conspiracy thrillers are often journalists or amateur investigators who find themselves (often inadvertently) pulling on a small thread which un ...

novels, by

and

.FNORD
(archived fro

on July 3, 1997), excerpt from

by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. 'Suddenly I saw Hagbard's eyes burning into me and heard his voice: "Your heart will remain calm. Your adrenaline gland will remain calm. Calm, all-over calm. You will not panic. You will look at the fnord and see it. You will not evade it or black it out. You will stay calm and face it." And further back, way back: my first-grade teacher writing FNORD on the blackboard, while a wheel with a spiral design turned and turned on his desk, turned and turned, and his voice droned on, IF YOU DON'T SEE THE FNORD IT CAN'T EAT YOU, DON'T SEE THE FNORD, DON'T SEE THE FNORD ...' ''Illuminatus!'' was produced, in the United Kingdom, as a cycle of plays by anarchic theatre director

Ken Campbell Kenneth Victor Campbell (10 December 1941 – 31 August 2008) was an English actor, director and writer. He was known for his work in experimental theatre. He has been called "a one-man dynamo of British theatre". Campbell achieved notoriety ...

and his

Jungian Analytical psychology (, sometimes translated as analytic psychology; also Jungian analysis) is a term referring to the psychological practices of Carl Jung. It was designed to distinguish it from Freud's psychoanalytic theories as their s ...

Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool. The plays further popularized the term. In the novel trilogy (and the plays), the interjection "fnord" is given hypnotic power over the unenlightened. Under the

Illuminati The Illuminati (; plural of Latin ''illuminatus'', 'enlightened') is a name given to several groups, both real and fictitious. Historically, the name usually refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on 1 ...

program, children in grade school are taught to be unable to consciously see the word "fnord". For the rest of their lives, every appearance of the word subconsciously generates a feeling of unease and confusion, preventing rational consideration of the text it appears in. The uneasiness and confusion create a perpetual low-level state of fear in the populace. The government acts on the premise that a fearful populace keeps them in power. In the Shea/Wilson construct, fnords—occurrences of the word "fnord"—are scattered liberally in the text of newspapers and magazines, causing fear and anxiety in those following current events. However, there are no fnords in the advertisements, encouraging a

consumerist ''Consumerist'' (also known as ''The Consumerist'') was a non-profit consumer affairs website owned by Consumer Media LLC, a subsidiary of ''Consumer Reports'', with content created by a team of full-time reporters and editors. The site's focu ...

society. The exclusion of the text from rational consciousness also enables the Illuminati to publish messages to each other in newspapers, etc., without fear that other people will be aware of them. It is implied in the books that ''fnord'' is not the actual word used for this task, but merely a substitute, since most readers would be unable to see the actual word. To "see the fnords" means to be unaffected by the supposed hypnotic power of the word or, more loosely, of other

fighting words Fighting words are spoken words intended to provoke a retaliatory act of violence against the speaker. In United States constitutional law, the term describes words that inflict injury or would tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. ...

. The term may also be used to refer to the experience of becoming aware of a phenomenon's ubiquity after first observing it. The phrase "I have seen the fnords" was graffitied on a British railway bridge throughout the 1980s and 1990s, until the bridge was upgraded. The bridge, located between Earlsdon and Coventry city centre, is known locally as "Anarchy Bridge". The bridge and the phrase were mentioned in the novel ''A Touch of Love'' by

Jonathan Coe Jonathan Coe (; born 19 August 1961) is an English novelist and writer. His work has an underlying preoccupation with political issues, although this serious engagement is often expressed comically in the form of satire. For example, '' What a ...

Usage

The lack of a clear definition of the word, and its popularity among certain groups on the internet, allowed it to be appropriated as a placeholder word (a

) in computer programming, particularly by those with ties to

Discordianism Discordianism is a belief system based around Eris, the Greek goddess of strife and discord, and variously defined as a religion, new religious movement, virtual religion, or act of social commentary; though prior to 2005, some sources categoriz ...

or the

. It has also been found useful as the name for a "techno cultural" conference, computer programs, and as a general placeholder word in computing literature. Fnord! is the name of a (now defunct) freeware NT web server created by Brian Morin in 1995 and transferred to the care of Stephen Kazmierczak in 1997 when Morin was initiated into the summer Internet Server group at Microsoft. In his final transmission, Morin cites concern for potential legal backlash from the established tech giant as the reason for abandoning development of the free Fnord! server solution. Microsoft released Windows 95 and the accompanying Microsoft Network in the same time frame, which was seen as a play by the tech giant to monopolize the emerging online experience of dial-up users by introducing a toll road style business plan for accessing the world's information. Paulo Goode, a typeface designer from West Cork, Ireland, created a serif font named Fnord in 2016 which contains 23 fonts in five weights. The geometry of the upper case 'O' is drawn on an axis of 23 degrees while the lower case 'o' falls on a 17-degree axis. The 23 / 17 numerology is reflective of similar numerical themes from

References

External links

"A Short Discourse on the Ancient and Accepted Discordian Practice of Fnording Dollar Bills" Ol' Sam, U:M, PS!, A/B.

a program for generating "fnord" sentences {{Hidden messages Computing terminology Satirical conspiracy theories Discordianism Neologisms Placeholder names Robert Anton Wilson Words originating in fiction

Other uses

Origins

Usage

See also

References

Further reading

External links