Godwin's law
2
9.3
- noun
- /ˈɡɑːd.wɪnz lɔː/
- Jargon
- Many participants in the forum joked that they could not make it through a conversation without invoking Godwin's law.
Examples
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There are many corollaries to Godwin's law, some considered more canonical (by being adopted by Godwin himself) than others.
Blog text (9) -
By the way, Jack, you have just violated Godwin's law.
Blog text (14) -
This principle is itself frequently referred to as Godwin's law.
Blog text (9) -
Godwin's law is stupid.
Blog text (9) -
Godwin's law!
Blog text (9) -
Godwin's law strikes again.
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I sometimes like to imagine what conversations would crop up in Stalinist Russia if Godwin's law had been around then: "He's rounding up thousands of people and putting them in camps!"
Blog text (9) -
In online debates, it often seems that Godwin's law is inevitably triggered when discussions last too long.
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It is interesting to observe how often someone references Godwin's law during heated discussions on social media.
Surface Forms
Morphology
Godwin's + law
This is an eponymous term named after a person (Godwin) referring to a specific internet adage; knowing the noun 'law' does not let a learner infer the rule about Nazi comparisons in online discussions. The possessive proper name is culturally specific and provides no semantic clue to the MWE's meaning, so a B1 learner who only knows the constituent words would not be able to derive it.
Etymology
Godwin's law comes from lawyer Mike Godwin, who noticed in early internet discussions that the longer a debate went, the more likely someone would compare someone to 'Hitler' or 'Nazis'. So people mention Godwin's law today to point out that these extreme comparisons are common and often stop a discussion.