colophon

About the compendium.

sf-isms is a field guide to the slang of San Francisco tech - the phrases, quotations, and archetypes that appear on the timeline one week and in a job posting the next. It is part Wikipedia (origins, citations, cross-references), part Urban Dictionary (definitions you can actually use), part Know Your Meme (the discourse is the artifact).

Every entry records what could be verified and flags what could not. Quotes are corrected against the record even when the misquote is funnier - though the misquote usually gets a footnote, because the misquote is data too.

How terms get in

Anyone can pitch an ism. A research agent with web search traces the origin, the coiner, and notable sightings, and is forbidden to fabricate citations. A human rules on the dossier: admit or decline. New admissions enter as emerging; the timeline decides what becomes canon.

Editorial positions

• Black and white, because the discourse supplies the color.
• Serial numbers, because a lexicon is a catalog of specimens.
• No fabricated tweet URLs, ever. An unverified sighting is labeled an unverified sighting.
• Sincerity-irony superposition is not resolved by this publication.

Corrections and prior art: use the pitch form and mark it as a correction.