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I'm not sure I agree with anything you have said here. "Black Swan" was in use before Taleb's book, at a similar frequency as it is today (Google Trends scores

I'm not sure I agree with anything you have said here. "Black Swan" was in use before Taleb's book, at a similar frequency as it is today (Google Trends scores 2 vs 3, where 100 is when the book was released). "Black swan" as a phrase dates at least to Roman times, often referring to the philosophical idea that the observation of a single black swan would prove their existence. (I've heard 'black sheep' used for this as well, although that has other more popular meanings). The interesting part is that this did come to pass, for black swans: which are only native to Australia. So, in my mind, it refers to something which is conceivable, but not believed to exist and not (yet) observed.

brobdingnagians 5y ago
The Roman writer Juvenal is the origin of the phrase [1]. Neat to see pictures of them. [2] And humbling to think it took almost two thousand years for them to find out that the proverbial phrase was wrong. [1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/black%20swan https://www.etymonline.com/word/black%20swan [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan
gumby 5y ago
> "Black Swan" was in use before Taleb's book In fact he likely used the term for his title because it's a well-known metaphor.