Douglas Coupland

option paralysis - the tendency, when given unlimited choices, to make none. (page 139)

recurving - leaving one job to take another that pays less but places one back on the learning curve. (page 24)

obscurism - the practice of peppering daily life with obscure references (forgotten films, dead TV stars, unpopular books, defunct countries, etc.) as a subliminal means of showcasing both one's education and one's wish to disassociate from the world of mass culture. (page 165)

down-nesting - the tendency of parents to move to smaller, guest-room-free houses after the children have moved away so as to avoid children aged 20 to 30 who have boomeranged home. (page 144)

QFM - quelle fashion mistake: "It was really QFM, I mean painter pants? That's 1979 beyond belief." (page 120)

the emperor's new mall - the popular notion that shopping malls exist on the inside only and have no exterior. The suspension of visual belief engendered by this notion allows shoppers to pretend that the large, cement blocks thrust into their environment, do not, in fact, exist. (page 71)

o'propriation - the inclusion of advertising, packaging, and entertainment jargon from earlier eras in everyday speech for ironic and/or comic effect: "Kathleen's Favorite Dead Celebrity party was tons o' fun" or "Dave really thinks of himself as a zany, nutty, wacky, and madcap guy, doesn't he?" (page 107)

pull-the-plug, slice the pie - a fantasy in which an offspring mentally tallies up the net worth of his parents. (page 137)

poorochondria - hypochondria derived from not having medical insurance. (page 74)

platonic shadow - a nonsexual friendship with a member of the opposite sex. (page 62)

emallgration - migration toward lower-tech, lower-information environments containing a lessened emphasis on consumerism. (page 173)

Jack-and-Jill party - a Squire tradition; baby showers to which both men and women friends are invited as opposed to only women. Doubled purchasing power of bisexual attendance brings gift values up to Eisenhower-era standards. (page 143)