TEOTWAWKI
The End Of The World As We Know It
TRANSLATION
TEOTWAWKI = der Weltuntergang --- GOOGLE INDEX TEOTWAWKI: approximately 75,000 Google hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
According to popular consensus, on that day the world's computers, unable to calculate the date correctly due to a programming error made many years earlier, would either shut down or begin outputting incorrect data. Many commentators said the result would be TEOTWAWKI.
(The New American)
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Does anyone still think TEOTWAWKI will happen?
(The New York Times)
(The New American)
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Does anyone still think TEOTWAWKI will happen?
(The New York Times)
Did you
know?
TEOTWAWKI
acronym
- The End Of The World As We Know It
---
WORD ORIGIN
The acronym TEOTWAWKI is used by many in the Internet community, as well as by so-called "survivalists," to describe catastrophic events that they believe will lead to "the end of the world as we know it." Because the acronym cannot be easily pronounced, it is seldom heard in conversations. For those who want to try and impress their friends anyway, TEOTWAWKI is pronounced something like "teeotwaakee."
One of the most well-known TEOTWAWKI prophecies was the year 2000 problem, commonly called Y2K or the millennium bug. Y2K (the "K" stands for kilo or thousand, thus the year 2000) was a computer bug resulting from the practice in early computer programming in which the year was represented with two digits.
This caused some date-related processing to operate incorrectly for dates and times on and after January 1, 2000 and on other critical dates that were billed "event horizons". This fear was fuelled by an overly-zealous media and reports of doom from governments and other organisations. As everyone knows by now, the turn of the millennium was not the apocalypse that it was predicted to be. Or as the American rock band R.E.M. put it in their same-named 1987 hit song:
It's the end of the world as we know it,
And I feel fine…
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SYNONYMS
annihilation, Armageddon, cataclysm, catastrophe, decimation, devastation, doom and gloom, holocaust
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SMUGGLE OWAD INTO TODAY'S CONVERSATION:
"Relax. If we lose this contract it won't be TEOTWAWKI."
acronym
- The End Of The World As We Know It
---
WORD ORIGIN
The acronym TEOTWAWKI is used by many in the Internet community, as well as by so-called "survivalists," to describe catastrophic events that they believe will lead to "the end of the world as we know it." Because the acronym cannot be easily pronounced, it is seldom heard in conversations. For those who want to try and impress their friends anyway, TEOTWAWKI is pronounced something like "teeotwaakee."
One of the most well-known TEOTWAWKI prophecies was the year 2000 problem, commonly called Y2K or the millennium bug. Y2K (the "K" stands for kilo or thousand, thus the year 2000) was a computer bug resulting from the practice in early computer programming in which the year was represented with two digits.
This caused some date-related processing to operate incorrectly for dates and times on and after January 1, 2000 and on other critical dates that were billed "event horizons". This fear was fuelled by an overly-zealous media and reports of doom from governments and other organisations. As everyone knows by now, the turn of the millennium was not the apocalypse that it was predicted to be. Or as the American rock band R.E.M. put it in their same-named 1987 hit song:
It's the end of the world as we know it,
And I feel fine…
---
SYNONYMS
annihilation, Armageddon, cataclysm, catastrophe, decimation, devastation, doom and gloom, holocaust
---
SMUGGLE OWAD INTO TODAY'S CONVERSATION:
"Relax. If we lose this contract it won't be TEOTWAWKI."
