Murphy's law
Appearance
See also: Murphy's Law
English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Named after Edward A. Murphy Jr. (1918–1990), a development engineer who worked for a brief time on the rocket-sled experiments of the United States Air Force in 1948.
Proper noun
[edit]- An adage which states that if anything can go wrong, then it will.
- Synonyms: Sod's law, Finagle's law
- 1953, Anne Roe, The Making of a Scientist, page 214:
- I ran into the perfect exemplification of “Murphy's law” at one university, where everything that could go wrong did!
- 2014, Muriel Spark, The Golden Fleece, Carcanet, →ISBN:
- ‘It was an application of Murphy's Law,’ said one Vatican dignitary in a resigned voice. What was Murphy's Law? ‘Murphy's Law,’ said the dignitary, ‘is that everything that can possibly go wrong will go wrong.’
Coordinate terms
[edit]Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]adage which states that if anything can go wrong it will
|
Further reading
[edit]- Murphy's law on Wikipedia.Wikipedia