wasm
English
WOTD – 4 October 2018
Etymology
From ism, with with jocular substitution of was for is.[1]
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈwɒz(ə)m/, /ˈwʌz(ə)m/
Audio (RP) (file) - (General American) enPR: wŭzʹ(ə)m, wŏzʹ(ə)m, IPA(key): /ˈwʌz(ə)m/, /ˈwɑz(ə)m/
Noun
wasm (plural wasms)
- (humorous) A doctrine, ideology, rule, or theory that is no longer current or fashionable.
- 1960, Peter Viereck, “The Global Lobal Blues [from The Tree Witch]”, in The New Mexico Quarterly, volume 30, Albuquerque, N.M.: Faculty of University of New Mexico, OCLC 8263603, page 356; reprinted in “The Mob within the Heart”, in Strict Wildness: Discoveries in Poetry and History, New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2008, →ISBN, part 2 (History: Its Sadness), page 137:
- Progress is a PLAStic bag; / Come stick in your head and what AILS you will gag. / Gasping the BLUE-in-the-face blues. / When our propaganda spasms turn your isms into wasms, / We'll bag the earth in a PLAStic globe and disconnect your frontal lobe / With our gadget-pop Agitprop air-jet-hop think-no-more blues.
- 1996 March 10, Richard Taruskin, “Classical view: How talented composers become useless”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 5 October 2016:
- The nice thing about an ism, someone once observed, is how quickly it becomes a wasm. Some musical wasms – academic-wasm, for example, and its dependent varieties of modern-wasm and Serial-wasm – continue to linger on artificial life support, though, and continue to threaten the increasingly fragile classical ecosystem.
- 2000 fall, Donald S. Lopez Jr., Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, volume 10, number 1, New York, N.Y.: The Tricycle Foundation, OCLC 968972014, archived from the original on 12 July 2016, page 42, column 1:
- Dwight Eisenhower, a president not particularly remembered for his wit, once remarked that "all isms are wasms." He was presumably referring, rather presciently, to the largely forgotten isms that were once perceived as a threat to truth, justice, and the American way: Marxism, socialism, communism.
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Translations
doctrine, ideology, rule, or theory no longer current or fashionable
References
- “wasm, n.”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, July 2018.
Anagrams
- MAWs, MSAW, Maws, WMAs, awms, maws, sawm, swam