A much-quoted item of sf Terminology, originally introduced in the anarcho-religious tract Principia Discordia (1965) by Kerry Thornley and Greg Hill, and widely popularized in the Illuminatus! trilogy (1975) by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. In the context of an assumed global conspiracy, fnords are defined as deliberately inserted keywords – for which the invented term "fnord" is a generic placeholder – which as a result of supposed childhood conditioning we do not perceive (> Perception) within the text of newspapers, magazines or books, but which nevertheless Subliminally generate unease and stifle rational thought. [DRL]
see also: Basilisks; Meme.
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