[Ads-l] "Finagle's Law" Not in OED or Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Interesting topic, Fred. Harold Faber's reference book "The Book of
Laws" lists two different versions of Finagle's Law together with
citations. I have not double-checked the citations.

[ref] 1979, The Book of Laws, Compiled by Harold Faber, Chapter 9: The
Laws of Science and Technology, Quote Page 95, Times Books, New York.
(Verified with hardcopy) [/ref]

[Begin excerpt]
FINAGLE'S LAW (1)
Once a job has been fouled up, anything done to improve it makes it worse.
(Quoted by Brooks Atkinson, in The New York Times, February 1, 1961.)

FINAGLE'S LAW (2)
If anything can go wrong with an experiment, it will.
(Quoted by Gunter Cohn, in Plating magazine, requoting from Product
Engineering, April 21, 1958.)
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Fri, Feb 14, 2025 at 1:18 PM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> I don't see "Finagle's Law" in either OED or the Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction.  This is often said to have been coined by legendary science fiction editor John W. Campbell.  I don't know of any specific citation to Campbell.  The earliest I find in a few minutes of searching is 1958 (Nuclear Engineering, Dec. 1958, from Internet Archive).
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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