[Ads-l] Huberman quirks

Sun Jul 13 12:53:27 UTC 2025

HDAS III would have shown how common to "blow one's stack" was from the
'40s through the '60s.  (Maybe less common than "blow one's top.")

According to Dictionary,com a "stack" now also means $1000: "He spent two
stacks on those jeans."  (Sounds to me it should mean about $10, but  I'm
from the "blow your stack" era.)

In recent use, a "stack" is also a formation of troops or police in a line
for breaching a door and entering a building.

JL

On Sat, Jul 12, 2025 at 11:50 PM John Baker <
0000192d2eeb9639-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:

> “To blow one’s stack” does not relate to the computer meaning of “stack”
> or to electric guitar amplifiers. The OED has it from 1947 and says it is
> equivalent to “to blow one’s top,” to lose control of oneself through
> anger, excitement, etc. Presumably this relates to the chimney/flue meaning
> of “stack.”
>
> Here is an antedating of the OED, from the Greenville (Ohio) Daily
> Advocate, Sept. 17, 1942, at 8 (Newspapers.com):  “One of the fellows here
> received a letter from the States and inside was an envelope containing
> sand from a beach in New York. Boy, did he go up in smoke and really blow
> his stack at that! It made him homesick.”
>
>
> John Baker
>
>
> > On Jul 12, 2025, at 11:07 PM, Chris Waigl <chris at lascribe.net> wrote:
> >
> > Interesting point from Nancy. in my (imperfect) recollection, stack was
> a
> > buzzword, or maybe a fad, in the Web 1.0 era up to the early 2000s or
> > thereabouts. "I have too many things on my stack", "this blew my stack",
> > "it's important to manage your stack well".
> >
> > Maybe one reason it became less fashionable is the rise of interpreted
> > programming languages. Fewer techies come trained in C or FORTRAN or
> other
> > language where dealing with a stack overflow is a common occurrence or at
> > least a rite of passage.
> >
> > (But then, when I google "blowing one's stack" I get the feeling that the
> > world of electric guitar amplifiers has something to say about it too.)
> >
> > Chris
> >
> >> On Sat, Jul 12, 2025 at 5:35 PM Nancy Friedman <
> >> 00001b7f50001087-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >> I wonder whether "supplement stack" has been influenced by
> computer-jargon
> >> "stack," which has been around for decades. The Jargon File, published
> in
> >> 1991 as The New Hacker's Dictionary, defines "stack" as "the set of
> things
> >> [a person] has to do in the future"; to "smash the stack" is "to write
> past
> >> the end of an array declared *auto* in a routine." A full-stack
> developer
> >> handles both front- and back-end development of a website or
> application.
> >> Wordnik includes this definition: "A section of memory and its
> associated
> >> registers used for temporary storage of information in which the item
> most
> >> recently stored is the first to be retrieved." Wordnik's example
> sentences,
> >> all from between 2005 and 2010, are mostly tech-flavored.
> >>
> >> "Stack" also appears in the name of the publishing platform Substack
> >> (founded 2017). It's both an established computer term (a subset of a
> >> stack) and a compound suggesting "a stack of subscriptions."
> >>
> >> In Huberman's case, many of his listeners come from the tech world and
> are
> >> interested in bio-hacking (etc.), so using a term from computer lingo
> could
> >> be a way to connect with them.
> >>
> >>
> >> Nancy Friedman
> >> Chief Wordworker
> >> web: wordworking.com <http://www.wordworking.com>
> >> substack https://fritinancy.substack.com/
> >> Medium <https://medium.com/@wordworking>
> >>
> >> tel 510 652-4159
> >> cel 510 304-3953
> >> bluesky/mastodon/instagram  Fritinancy
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>> On Sat, Jul 12, 2025 at 6:09 PM Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com>
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> It's been common for decades in the bodybuilding/strength training
> >>> communities to refer to
> >>> combinations of anabolic steroids as "stacks", and to verb this, in the
> >>> sense 'to combine steroids'.
> >>>
> >>> Lots of examples from the 1980s; earliest I can easily find is:
> >>>
> >>> 1985 _1986 Medical & Health Annual_ (Encyclopædia Britannica) 304/1
> >>> Because different types of steroids have differing anabolic properties
> >>> (and are associated
> >>> with varying side effects), serious steroid users typically combine a
> >>> number of steroids in regimens called "steroid stacks", in which
> >> different
> >>> types of drugs are used in combinations or are "stacked" one upon
> >> another.
> >>>
> >>> https://archive.org/details/medicalhealthann0000unse/page/304/mode/1up
> >>>
> >>> I think I've only heard it in this exact context, though; the use in
> >>> reference to regular nutritional supplements, or differing varieties or
> >>> protocols of exercise, feels unusual.
> >>>
> >>> Jesse Sheidlower
> >>>
> >>> On Sat, Jul 05, 2025 at 08:51:17AM -0400, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >>>> Dr. Andrew Huberman, associate professor of neurobiology and
> >>>> ophthalmology at  Stanford Medical School,  advises you to "build a
> >> stack
> >>>> of foundational supplements" for maximal health; in other words a
> >> lineup
> >>> of
> >>>> supplemental interactive micronutrients.
> >>>>
> >>>> He also talks about "stacks" of methods and practices, like yoga and
> >>>> exercise, to keep you functioning. This use of "stack" is novel to me,
> >> as
> >>>> is his frequent reference to healthy practices as "tools."
> >>>>
> >>>> Weirdly, he also says "messajeez" for  "mcgs."
> >>>>
> >>>> JL
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> >>> truth."
> >>>>
> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>>
> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>>
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > Chris Waigl . chris.waigl at gmail.com . chris at lascribe.net
> > http://eggcorns.lascribe.net . http://chryss.eu
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org