New Lexicon Entry
McEstimate: Any figure given by the Business and Economics editor of the Atlantic or an equally reliable source (Bill Kristol, Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber, an anonymous tea party organizer, your dog, your neighbor’s toddler, your own personal peyote-induced vision that you had while vomiting tequila and bile through your nose onto yourself at sunrise at Burning Man) in which it is just generally acknowledged that the actual number most probably is either higher or lower by a factor of ten.
For example, I might state: “The last time I had my IQ checked, it was 1300, but that is just a McEstimate.”
See also:
Within an order of megantude—close enough to be published.
(via)
August 17, 2010 2:11 pm
Posted in: Bring on the Brawndo!, Our Failed Media Experiment, Technically True but Collectively Nonsense
58 Comments
58 Responses
The Dangerman - August 17, 2010 | 2:14 pm · Link
Damn, any McEstimate of John Holmes’, um, attributes could be scary.
martha - August 17, 2010 | 2:15 pm · Link
I weigh 125 and am 5’10” tall.
That, my friends, is a McEstimate.
Love it! I’m so stealing this John…
AkaDad - August 17, 2010 | 2:15 pm · Link
My penis is 10 inches long and 3 inches wide, but that is just a McEstimate.
dmsilev - August 17, 2010 | 2:15 pm · Link
Very geeky insult, from my days in graduate school: “Their error bars are in the exponent”. Would seem to apply to McArdle’s sense of math.
I wonder whether she makes the same sort of “off by a factor of ten or more” errors in her house shopping or her cooking?
dms
WereBear - August 17, 2010 | 2:15 pm · Link
What about their endless “this is the End of everything!”
Is that a MacPocalypse?
SoVeryConfused - August 17, 2010 | 2:17 pm · Link
So, are you saying your actual IQ is either 130 or 13,000?
I am so very confused.
stevie314159 - August 17, 2010 | 2:19 pm · Link
See also:
Within an order of megantude—close enough to be published.
khead - August 17, 2010 | 2:19 pm · Link
Tequila? I prefer the 3 gallons of moonshine I had last night. Of course, that’s just a McEstimate.
General Stuck - August 17, 2010 | 2:19 pm · Link
I’ve always thought MalkinMath to be superior in it’s inferior degree of accuracy. but watevah.
beltane - August 17, 2010 | 2:21 pm · Link
McEstimate is a nice, diplomatic term. I prefer McDumbass but that’s just me being mean.
MattF - August 17, 2010 | 2:22 pm · Link
When I was in grad school, a grad student in astrophysics in my neighborhood made a ‘back of the envelope’ estimate of the albedo of the interstellar medium. Which turned out to be wrong by an order of magnitude of orders of magnitude. He was rather proud of that.
Trinity - August 17, 2010 | 2:23 pm · Link
@beltane: This.
arguingwithsignposts - August 17, 2010 | 2:23 pm · Link
And all McEstimates are computed on McAlculators which do not do billions.
ETA: and given that penchant for such orders of magnitude errors, I can’t imagine what her food tastes like (as another commenter mentioned above).
David Hunt - August 17, 2010 | 2:23 pm · Link
While we’re talking about the Lexicon, I going to point out that Rosie needs an entry because somebody’s got to say it.
mai naem - August 17, 2010 | 2:25 pm · Link
Don’t forget Karl Rove’s math also. too.
p.a. - August 17, 2010 | 2:26 pm · Link
These errors are the result of attempts at basic arithmetic. Imagine her forays into McCalculus. Yet the McLantic is a very serious publication.
licensed to kill time - August 17, 2010 | 2:27 pm · Link
So, Dubya was actually misunderMcEstimated.
It’s all clear as mud now!
Steve - August 17, 2010 | 2:28 pm · Link
Late last night I was drafting a complaint in which I calculated my client’s damages as $24,000,000 instead of $480,000. Maybe I shouldn’t work late at night.
Stillwater - August 17, 2010 | 2:30 pm · Link
McGarbled: an argument or statement so completely vacuous you end up making no sense whatsoever.
MikeJ - August 17, 2010 | 2:30 pm · Link
@p.a.: I don’t think she’d try calculus. Why waste your time on something that’s all a plot?
Shinobi - August 17, 2010 | 2:31 pm · Link
Has McDonalds really served over a billion hamburgers or is that just a McEstimate?
The Dangerman - August 17, 2010 | 2:31 pm · Link
Tax cuts lead to increases in tax revenue, so it is a reasonable McEstimate that zero taxes should lead to infinite revenue (which, of course, would be a problem, because infinite revenue would lead to infinite Government spending and we sure in the fuck don’t want that – unless it would be for infinite wars, in which case, that’s cool).
Omnes Omnibus - August 17, 2010 | 2:32 pm · Link
@Steve: Use the $24 million in your demand letter.
suzanne - August 17, 2010 | 2:35 pm · Link
Related: McHypothetical.
During the first Bush administration, I called it “fuzzy math”.
Elizabelle - August 17, 2010 | 2:36 pm · Link
@stevie314159:
That’s wonderful.
NickM - August 17, 2010 | 2:38 pm · Link
In other words, you have to take everything Megan writes with about 4 metric tons of Pink Himalayan salt.
schrodinger's cat - August 17, 2010 | 2:40 pm · Link
Does McEstimate approach infinity as we near wingularity?
FlipYrWhig - August 17, 2010 | 2:43 pm · Link
@stevie314159: I really enjoyed “megantude.” Particularly how it blends “megan,” “magnitude,” and “attitude.”
Wile E. Quixote - August 17, 2010 | 2:48 pm · Link
President Obama is going to lunch at a restaurant that’s just catty corner from my office. I mcestimate that there are 4,000,000 people outside of my office down in Pioneer Square to see President Obama.
Jay in Oregon - August 17, 2010 | 2:49 pm · Link
@SoVeryConfused:
Yes.
Jay in Oregon - August 17, 2010 | 2:51 pm · Link
@stevie314159:
Beautiful!
Omnes Omnibus - August 17, 2010 | 2:51 pm · Link
@Jay in Oregon: Mine is either higher or lower than that.
BrianM - August 17, 2010 | 2:51 pm · Link
We will not rest until “an order of megantude” is added.
wrb - August 17, 2010 | 2:56 pm · Link
@BrianM:
Hear, Hear
jacy - August 17, 2010 | 2:57 pm · Link
@Wile E. Quixote:
I just hope your post doesn’t revive the catty-corner/caddy-corner argument. That could result in eleventy-billion word etymology posts. This of course is just a McEstimate.
Belafon (formerly anonevent) - August 17, 2010 | 2:58 pm · Link
But the factor can be further off when the McEstimate is already taken into account.
Wile E. Quixote - August 17, 2010 | 3:00 pm · Link
I mcestimate that there will be roughly 100,000,000 posts by angry wingers about how President Obama ate lunch at Grand Central Bakery in Seattle where they have that faggy, artisanal bread and didn’t do what Real Murkins™ do when they eat lunch, which is get something from the McDonald’s drive through.
I also mcestimate that CNN and Faux will spend at least 100 hours covering President Obama’s choice of what to eat at lunch.
Spaghetti Lee - August 17, 2010 | 3:02 pm · Link
@Wile E. Quixote:
Well that’s too bad, because my McCalculator shows me that he has abused over 17,000 Constitutional freedoms.
El Cid - August 17, 2010 | 3:04 pm · Link
Monty Python has been there, done that.
Lee - August 17, 2010 | 3:05 pm · Link
For those of us megadorks out there, I just started up a #McEstimate hasttag on Twitter…
HumboldtBlue - August 17, 2010 | 3:11 pm · Link
Yeah, “an order of megnatude” has got to have its place in the lexicon or else the lexicon is just … nothing, nada, zilch.
Alwhite - August 17, 2010 | 3:11 pm · Link
@BrianM:
Got my vote too!
JGabriel - August 17, 2010 | 3:13 pm · Link
John Cole:
Personal experience, or just something you heard about? I mean, that’s some pretty hilariously specific detail.
.
MoeLarryAndJesus - August 17, 2010 | 3:14 pm · Link
I estimate that Peter Suderman has a 25 inch penis.
maus - August 17, 2010 | 3:16 pm · Link
@Wile E. Quixote: Sweet! I should have biked downtown this morning, but I forgot about all this until I got to work.
JGabriel - August 17, 2010 | 3:18 pm · Link
John Cole:
Pshaw! The fact that McArdle’s estimates are often off by an order of magnitude may be technically true, but it’s collectively nonsense.
.
Betsy - August 17, 2010 | 3:20 pm · Link
@stevie314159:
Brilliant.
cleek - August 17, 2010 | 3:31 pm · Link
@jacy:
it’s “kitty-corner”.
everything else is wrong.
see, no argument.
Anonymous At Work - August 17, 2010 | 3:57 pm · Link
Minor suggestion:
“...off by at least a factor of ten.”
Give yourself the wiggle room for next time the McEstimate is off by 20, rather than just 10.
Gabe - August 17, 2010 | 4:29 pm · Link
John, why do you insult my neighbor’s toddler? I asked him to tell me how old I was. First he said “two”. Then “22”. Then “102”. The correct answer is 33, but he was fairly close. Closer than McMoron would have been.
mai naem - August 17, 2010 | 4:42 pm · Link
The Tunchmeister’s McEstimated weight is 3 lbs.
El Tiburon - August 17, 2010 | 4:45 pm · Link
On this I laughed out loud.
wrb - August 17, 2010 | 4:47 pm · Link
Within an order of megantude—close enough to be publishedIn The Atlantic
The shame accruing to this once (and still mostly) great mag for endorsing her drivelings must be emphasized.
Anaboly - August 17, 2010 | 5:17 pm · Link
I also think “fee fees” needs to be added to the lexicon.
asiangrrlMN - August 17, 2010 | 5:32 pm · Link
@cleek: I was just going to say that. “Kitty-corner”. That is all.
@General Stuck: Woooo, I like that one, too. Maybe we can combine?
I McEstimate that my chances of being president in 2012 are around 10%, but that just may be my MalkinMath talking. Me likey!
Quiddity - August 17, 2010 | 6:16 pm · Link
John is being exceedingly McSnarky.
Adam Lang - August 17, 2010 | 8:00 pm · Link
Right up there with:
tancredible: (of a stated fact) completely unbelievable, except to two classes of people: those whose jobs depend upon their believing it, and those who will believe anything said by Glenn Beck or George W. Bush.
(of a person): can say anything, and have it be accepted by wingnuts and our media as gospel. As a direct result, never worries about whether anything he/she says is true or not.
tancredulous: Describing a person who would believe a tancredible person unreservedly and without critical thought.
Bill Murray - August 17, 2010 | 8:06 pm · Link
made up to buttress the conclusion decided before the piece was written