This week’s theme
Whose what?

This week’s words
Chekhov's gun
Parkinson's law
Barney's bull
John Thomson's man
collier's faith

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(PAHR-kin-suhnz law)

MEANING:

noun: The observation that work expands to fill the time available.

ETYMOLOGY:

After C. Northcote Parkinson (1909-1993), author and historian, who first articulated this observation in 1955 in an article in The Economist. Earliest documented use: 1955.

NOTES:

Parkinson’s Law is often applied to time management, but it can be generalized. Move into a bigger house, and you eventually acquire more stuff to fill it. Overbudget a project, and chances are it’ll use all the funds (and still go over budget).

USAGE:

“By some creepy Parkinson’s Law, anxiety expanded to fill the time available, especially the television time.”
Hendrik Hertzberg; The Talk of the Town; The New Yorker; Oct 29, 2001.

“Greta drove; I sat next to her, and the Oozer, in a spatial variation on Parkinson’s Law, contrived to fill the back seat on his own.”
Hugh Leonard; A Wild People; Methuen; 2001.

See more usage examples of Parkinson’s law in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: