confusopoly
n.— Note: Often used (as in this article) and perhaps coined by Scott Adams, creator of the comic strip Dilbert. «The goal of the people at the top now is to create what I call confusopolies. The barriers to entry to almost any business are so low now—any company can get into any business, just invest some capital and get your product made cheaply in China or somewhere—so everything is basically a commodity. So you have to make your product so complicated that people will pay more for it, just because they are awed by the complexity of it. This is what happened on Wall Street.» —“‘Dilbert’ on how to save your career” by Anne Fisher Fortune Dec. 10, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Barbara Kingsolver’s book Demon Copperhead is a retelling of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield set in today’s Appalachia. Martha shares memories of a long-ago visit to Kingsolver’s family farm in Virginia, where they...
To grok something means “to understand it completely.” The word grok comes from a language spoken on the planet Mars—well, at least according to the science fiction writer who coined the term! Also, we know the meaning of the word...