4 ms·

I credit this event as being The Reason, the only one, why people in the US know the word defenestration.

• afthonos 3y ago
  “Defenestration” was also the best slang for quitting Windows, back in the day.
  • NavinF 3y ago
    When are where was that? I've never heard that usage
    • afthonos 3y ago
      I remember it verbally in the mid-2000s.
• philiplu 3y ago
  Heh, sorry to disagree, but that's a big nope. I learned the word in my teens, back in the 70s, from the Arthur C. Clarke story "The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch" in his "Tales from the White Hart" collection of SF-oriented tall tales.
  • thombat 3y ago
    TIL that "Tales from the White Hart" had at least some readership in the USA - I would have feared that its air of post-war English constraints (rationing and London grime) felt almost more fantastical than the accounts of Harry Purvis.
    • philiplu 3y ago
      As an avid SF reader back then, I pretty much devoured everything by the big 3 of Clarke, Asimov, and Heinlein. And lots of others, of course - the Callahan's Bar shorts by Spider Robinson were a fun update of the Tales from the White Hart idea.
• tanseydavid 3y ago
  I learned the word from the band REM, specifically lyricist Michael Stipe commenting that their 1991 song, Belong was NOT a song about defenestration. https://www.songfacts.com/facts/rem/belong https://www.songfacts.com/facts/rem/belong