THE X THAT CAN BE Y IS NOT THE TRUE X


Meaning of THE X THAT CAN BE Y IS NOT THE TRUE X in English

Yet another instance of hackerdom's peculiar attraction to mystical references -- a common humorous way of making exclusive statements about a class of things. The template is from the "Tao te Ching": "The Tao which can be spoken of is not the true Tao." The implication is often that the X is a mystery accessible only to the enlightened. See the trampoline entry for an example, and compare has the X nature .

Jargon File English vocabulary.      Английский словарь жаргона.