nohomology & [||]

I've noticed that the phenomenon of, what I define as nohomology, has grown exponentially in the past few years. I only noticed it myself in 2006, although there are examples within rap dating back to at least the late 1990s. Certain people even use disclaimers in real-life conversations, as evidenced by the incident I "reported" here where sportscaster Gus Johnson "paused" film director Spike Lee, in an interview on national TV. However, nohomology's real "sweet spot" is on the internets.

Those unfamiliar with nohomology, are probably wondering WTF I'm discussing here. Since I'm defining this phenomenon as nohomology, I will define it.

Nohomology itself is the practice of using disclaimers, to indicate that a statement that sounds gay, is not intended to be gay.

Examples of disclaimers used in a sentence
1 "can you drive a car that's a stick? Pause."
2 "It feels good, pause, holler at me, the ruler's back" (c) Jay-Z
3 "Yall gotta get behind me, right on my ass, pause" (c) The Roots' Black Thought & Questlove
4 Spike Lee referring to a specific individual basketball player ".. I like Dick", Gus Johnson "pause"

Example of disclaimers
no homo
no homo just in case aka nhjic
no homo of course aka nhoc
pause
no {insert name of gay person here}, eg no Lance Bass, no Rev. Ted Haggard, no Bob Allen, etc.

The intent of nohomology is not homophobic. For example, myself & others use disclaimers, while concurrently also politically supporting equal civil rights for gays. Instead, the intent is really comedy. On one hand, to an outsider of nohomology it may seem quite juvenile. On the other hand, it tends to make regular everyday boring statements incredibly funny. One blogger wrote that nohomology is the most hilarious "trend" in slang in the last 5 years. I can't disagree with that blogger, as I can't recall anything funnier.

The disclaimer "pause" has seemed to recently displace "nhjic" as the most-used, consensus disclaimer, on both the internets & in real-life. Some benefits of "pause":

1 only 1 syllable, & thus easier to say

2 people unfamiliar with nohomology, will not understand what is meant by "pause". OTOH, other disclaimers such as "no homo", may offend certain people not familiar with the comedic, non-discriminatory intent of nohomology.

Now that "pause" has reached "consensus disclaimer" status, I will attempt to innovate in the nohomology field by introducing a new "emoticon" symbol for pause, to be used on the internets.

[||]

note that this is the left bracket key, 2 "pipe keys" which are shift + "\" key, & the right bracket key.

Advantages of [||]
1 efficiency: [||] requires 4 keystrokes, less than the typical 7 keystrokes needed to type *pause*

2 [||] visibly looks like the "pause button" one sees on everyday consumer electronics products, such as a DVD or MP3 player.

Anyways, going forward I will be using [||] on my internets posts & comments. I encourage all to spread the [||] meme as well, just remember to cite this blog as the source.

Oh, & [||] on this entire blog post.