zabernism, choose one:

a) a reversal of the usual order of things, as in, for example, a countdown or reverse alphabetical order.

b) the state of being pigeon-toed. from Janos Zaber, 1787-1852, Czech physician who described the condition in a monograph ca. 1838.

c) a phrase that goes beyond meaningless, named for Wally Zaber. example: The necklace sock flew fishscales.

d) an economic system based on a network of professional guilds and trade unions collecting dues rather than taxes.

e) an 18th century Polish religious schism whose followers excluded wine from the holy sacraments.

f) the foreign policy theory that acting charismatically toward an enemy will result in further animosity. from the German word zauber for charm or magic.

g) a cult religion of germanic tribes from the common delta region of the Rine, Meuse, and Scheldt rivers which includes the Zuider Zee. central to their rites was the toss of the ZABERN, a wooden log that was tossed on end into a zodiacal circle. the direction of the lay of the log they believed predicted future events. Viking raids around 1000AD helped spread the rites to Scotland, where the tossing of the zabern, (scot-galic, caber(n),) survives today as a national sport.

h) military jackbootery. from an incident at Saverne (Ger. Zabern) in Alsace (1912), when an excited Ger. subaltern cut down a lame cobbler who smiled at him.

i) the belief that the Egyptian pryamids were built with the aid of extraterrestrial intelligences and have cosmic significance. after Thomas E Zabernsk (1942 - ), proponent.

j) abstention from alcohol.

k) carping criticism; like that of Zabernius, a Greek critic.

l) a compulsive penchant for repeating oneself, as identified by psychologist Dr. Gustav Zabern in 1923.

m) the nearly obsessive practice of seeking out the best pizzaria in the capital of Switzerland.