X-lord

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Today's xkcd:

Mouseover title: "If you study graphs in which edges can link more than two nodes, you're more properly called a hyperedgelord."

The Wiktionary entry's gloss: "(informal, derogatory, Internet slang) Someone who attempts to seem edgy by doing or saying risque or offensive things."

Wiktionary cites as "Related terms" douchelord and shitlord.

None of these have made it into the OED yet, to join landlord, houselord, ship-lord, etc.

I'm guessing that the Internet slang developments were inspired by the Dr. Who "Timelord" pattern.



6 Comments

  1. cameron said,

    August 22, 2018 @ 10:52 am

    It's interesting that a specific degree is stipulated as being a requirement for this manner of annoyance. Why not just "How to annoy a graph-theorist"?

  2. rt said,

    August 22, 2018 @ 11:30 am

    @cameron, I assume it's because "edgelord" is meant to be a title, like "doctor."

  3. AntC said,

    August 23, 2018 @ 10:09 am

    How come this slang chooses the nervous/on-edge sense of edgy, and treats it as derogatory?

    There's another (approbatory) sense: challenging, avant-guard/if you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room.

  4. J.W. Brewer said,

    August 23, 2018 @ 2:11 pm

    @AntC, by way of parallel the derived noun "hipster" is these days probably more pejorative than the underlying adjective "hip." Although maybe the adjective "hip" is now archaic among The Young People? (Also I think the "edgelord" etymology is in fact based on what you take to be the approbatory sense of "edgy," but applies it pejoratively to people who are faking or affecting edginess as a form of pretentiousness or something-else-considered-negativeness.)

  5. Andrew Usher said,

    August 23, 2018 @ 9:24 pm

    Yes, 'graph theory Ph.D.' is incorrect or at least sloppy usage, and 'graph theorist' would have been better, and, I assume, equally if not more comprehensible. But perhaps it was done deliberately to annoy 'peevers' …

    The pejorative sense is presumably because it's assumed that anyone too often seeming 'edgy' is a poser – a pretty safe assumption, though the posing may be less than conscious. Anyway the xkcd joke doesn't depend on such minutiae.

    k_over_hbarc at yahoo.com

  6. FM said,

    August 29, 2018 @ 3:06 pm

    The modern slang meaning of "edgy" is more or less "deliberately risqué"; there are more sophisticated ways of being "challenging/avant-garde" but this refers to, like, saying racist things in order to get a rise out of people.

    In the 90's when I was the right age for this sort of thing, "Gaylord" was commonly used as a generic playground insult.

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