Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

This blog will pay for itself.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Republicans in disarray!

As long as McCarthy is Speaker, the House will never be in order.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Bark louder, little dog.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

You are here: Home / New Lexicon Entry

New Lexicon Entry

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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)

Reader Interactions

58Comments

  2. 2.

    martha

    I weigh 125 and am 5’10” tall.

    That, my friends, is a McEstimate.

    Love it! I’m so stealing this John…

  4. 4.

    dmsilev

    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

  8. 8.

    khead

    your own personal peyote-induced vision that you had while vomiting tequila and bile through your nose onto yourself at sunrise at Burning Man

    Tequila? I prefer the 3 gallons of moonshine I had last night. Of course, that’s just a McEstimate.

  10. 10.

    beltane

    McEstimate is a nice, diplomatic term. I prefer McDumbass but that’s just me being mean.

  11. 11.

    MattF

    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.

  13. 13.

    arguingwithsignposts

    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).

  14. 14.

    David Hunt

    While we’re talking about the Lexicon, I going to point out that Rosie needs an entry because somebody’s got to say it.

  16. 16.

    p.a.

    These errors are the result of attempts at basic arithmetic. Imagine her forays into McCalculus. Yet the McLantic is a very serious publication.

  18. 18.

    Steve

    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.

  19. 19.

    Stillwater

    McGarbled: an argument or statement so completely vacuous you end up making no sense whatsoever.

  22. 22.

    The Dangerman

    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).

  24. 24.

    suzanne

    Related: McHypothetical.

    During the first Bush administration, I called it “fuzzy math”.

  26. 26.

    NickM

    In other words, you have to take everything Megan writes with about 4 metric tons of Pink Himalayan salt.

  29. 29.

    Wile E. Quixote

    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.

  35. 35.

    jacy

    @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.

  36. 36.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    But the factor can be further off when the McEstimate is already taken into account.

  37. 37.

    Wile E. Quixote

    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.

  41. 41.

    HumboldtBlue

    Yeah, “an order of megnatude” has got to have its place in the lexicon or else the lexicon is just … nothing, nada, zilch.

  43. 43.

    JGabriel

    John Cole:

    … your own personal peyote-induced vision that you had while vomiting tequila and bile through your nose onto yourself at sunrise at Burning Man …

    Personal experience, or just something you heard about? I mean, that’s some pretty hilariously specific detail.

    .

  46. 46.

    JGabriel

    John Cole:

    McEstimate: Any figure given by the Business and Economics editor of the Atlantic or an equally reliable source … in which it is just generally acknowledged that the actual number most probably is either higher or lower by a factor of ten.

    Pshaw! The fact that McArdle’s estimates are often off by an order of magnitude may be technically true, but it’s collectively nonsense.

    .

  49. 49.

    Anonymous At Work

    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.

  50. 50.

    Gabe

    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.

  53. 53.

    wrb

    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.

  55. 55.

    asiangrrlMN

    @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!

  57. 57.

    Adam Lang

    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.

  58. 58.

    Bill Murray

    McEstimate: Any figure given by the Business and Economics editor of the Atlantic or an equally reliable source … in which it is just generally acknowledged that the actual number most probably is

    made up to buttress the conclusion decided before the piece was written

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