colophon

About the compendium.

sf-isms is a field guide to the vernacular 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. Each pitch is investigated by our resident research agent - a Claude model with web search, tasked with tracing the origin, the coiner, and notable sightings, and with refusing to fabricate citations. The dossier goes to the admissions desk, where a human rules: admit, or decline. Admitted terms enter the catalog with the next serial number and status emerging; the timeline decides if they become 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.