About this site

I started collecting quotations with the eventual goal of publishing a book. As time went by, and the collection grew, I realized that I didn't really want to put in all the effort of publishing in hardcopy, and there was this keen new medium called the World Wide Web, just crying out for new content...

Okay, perhaps it was more my innate laziness coming to the surface. Either way, this site has been online for several years (and at several different URLs) and so far hasn't suffered too many demands that it go away. For most of its online existence, it was known as Murphy's Law, The Devil's Dictionary, and Other Truths. Just a wee bit pretentious, no? Earlier incarnations of the site were rated "G", but recent additions have been a bit more earthy, so the site is now more of a "PG". Sorry for those of you who find this offensive...

FAQ: Where did the term "Murphy's Law" come from?

This is probably the single most common question I receive. [Translation: it's been asked more than twice.] The answer is...The term "Murphy's Law" apparently originated in 1949 during US Air Force rocket sled testing. Edward A. Murphy, Jr., is credited with the formulation:

If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it.

Murphy was quoted in a press conference a few days later by Major John P. Stapp, USAF, and the term became common usage both within the USAF test facility and soon afterwards in the larger aerospace and technical communities.

There is an earlier genesis of a similar term in British usage, "Sod's Law", which may have originated during WW2 in the British army, but I don't have any documentation to prove this.

The origins of Murphy's Law is taken from Eric Raymond's Hacker's Dictionary, which is accessible on the web at http://eps.mcgill.ca/jargon/.