Footguns and rakestomping
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I've recently noticed two compound neologisms, both involving metaphors about foot-related self injury.
The first one was in an article in Medium on 6/27/2025, "Why Google is Betting 8 Years on a Programming Language That Doesn’t Exist Yet". That article explains that
In 2022, Google introduced Carbon, a potential successor to C++. Unlike Go or Rust, Carbon wasn’t ready for prime time. In fact, it was barely out of the conceptual phase.
And among the reasons given for the effort [emphasis added]:
C++ has steep learning curves and footguns.
The second foot-related compound was in a 7/24/2025 TPM article, "Why is Jeff Bezos rakestomping the Post?".
As Wiktionary explains, the noun footgun means
- (programming slang, humorous, derogatory) Any feature likely to lead to the programmer or user shooting themself in the foot.
- by extension, generalised from (1.): An opportunity or object that allows the unfortunate to mostly figuratively but sometimes literally shoot themselves in the foot. A less obvious footgun may be a pitfall
Wiktionary doesn't have an entry yet for rakestomp, but TPM has used it before: "BREAKING: Elon's Epic Email Rake-Stomp Finally Explained!", 2/25/2025. And Wiktionary does have an entry for "step on a rake", explaining the metaphorical sense "To fall victim to an avoidable (usually self-caused) hazard or error" by reference to "a gag in the 1993 episode "Cape Feare" of The Simpsons, in which Sideshow Bob, already injured, accidentally steps on several rakes, causing the handles to hit him in the face".
David said,
July 26, 2025 @ 5:22 pm
Interesting. I'd seen and noted the TPM one, but regarding Wiktionary's entry I'm pretty sure I was familiar with the idea of stepping on a rake (or the like) and being hit in the face as a cultural trope.
David said,
July 26, 2025 @ 5:26 pm
Sorry, necessary edit to my previous comment:
"I'm pretty sure I was familiar with the idea of stepping on a rake…" well before 1993. I didn't think it was a Simpsons invention, as that entry seems to suggest.
Jonathan Smith said,
July 26, 2025 @ 5:29 pm
"stomp" isn't working wrt this trope though (too active), should be e.g. "facerake" evoking "facepalm"… or even "rakepalm"
Greg Ralph said,
July 26, 2025 @ 5:54 pm
Just finished Punshon’s 1939 ‘Murder Abroad’:
“….he made a remark about the young man near who had managed to bruise himself so severely. For indeed one of Volny’s eyes was nearly closed and his nose was badly swollen. “You mean the young Volny?” answered the other, smiling. “Yes, it seems he stepped on the teeth of a rake and the handle leaped up and hit him between the eyes. That happens.”
JPL said,
July 26, 2025 @ 6:49 pm
@ Jonathan Smith:
I agree. How about, "He got a rake in the face"? The focus should be on the unexpected result of the careless act, not on an act that normally has a purposeful agency. (So "rakestepping" would be marginally better, since 'step' is used for non-purposeful actions like stepping on a snake or in some dog-do. (Even though the cartoon character seems strangely to be acting with purpose.) But the template for 'facepalm' involves a purposeful reaction in response, if you like, to a misstep, which could have been done by somebody else.
David L said,
July 26, 2025 @ 8:30 pm
As a matter of biophysics, I am not at all convinced that stepping on a rake and smashing yourself in the face happens outside of cartoons. A rake is, say, 5 feet long, and the tines are perhaps 3 inches. If the rake is lying flat on the ground, the tines are essentially vertical. Stepping on the business end therefore provides hardly any lever action that would pull the handle off the ground, let alone set it hurtling at great speed toward your nose.
In short, I would like to see a demonstration.
AntC said,
July 26, 2025 @ 8:46 pm
'Footgun' is by no means recent among brogrammers. I'd date it to the '90s. (Of course I'm not finding corroboration, on a quick search.)
Michael Nash said,
July 26, 2025 @ 10:03 pm
You might wish to examine the rather unusual phrase "nasal demons", too, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nasal_demon
Gregory Kusnick said,
July 26, 2025 @ 10:14 pm
Robert Frost apparently wrote a poem about stepping on a rake ("The Objection to Being Stepped On", 1957), which biographer Jay Parini claims is probably based on an actual incident in which Frost's wife Elinor stepped on a rake and broke her nose.
AlexB said,
July 27, 2025 @ 12:45 am
There is the French expression 'se prendre un rateau', which, however, the Académie informs me, actually has nothing to do with rakes
https://www.academie-francaise.fr/se-prendre-un-rateau
Haamu said,
July 27, 2025 @ 1:36 am
We can backdate the rake gag to 1922, when Harold Lloyd used it in Grandma’s Boy (fast forward to about 29:20). The rake hits him (twice) on his backside, not his face.
Frost writes about being struck “[i]n the seat of my sense,” which, admittedly, is ambiguous about back vs. front.
I think the notable innovation with Sideshow Bob, and the reason he’s cited as a source, is that he repeatedly steps on one rake after another. This would be consistent with the Urban Dictionary definitions of RakeStepping, which include the concept of repetition (“where a person or company keeps making the wrong decision no matter what they do”) and inevitability (“those ‘RakeStepping’ cannot put either foot forward without hitting themselves in the face with a metaphorical Rake!”).
David Marjanović said,
July 27, 2025 @ 3:41 am
Many rakes are longer than that. The tines are often even curved inwards, but depending on how perfectly even the ground really is and how the person steps, hitting oneself in the face is perfectly feasible.