email bankruptcy n. choosing to delete, archive, or ignore a very large number of email messages without ever reading them, replying to each with a unique response, or otherwise acting individually on them. Editorial Note: Although Lawrence Lessig is often credited with coining this term, at best he can be said only to have popularized it, as shown by the earlier citations. Often, email bankruptcy includes sending a blanket announcement to the senders of all unread email explaining that they will never receive a personal, specific response. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...
That’s a brilliant idea…
[select all]
[delete]
[auto-reply]: “Sorry, I will not be answering any more email this year. This applies retrospectively as well. Adam”