Dissociated Press

Dissociated Press
 n.

   [play on `Associated Press'; perhaps inspired by a reference in the
   1950 Bugs Bunny cartoon What's Up, Doc?] An algorithm for transforming
   any text into potentially humorous garbage even more efficiently than
   by passing it through a {marketroid}. The algorithm starts by printing
   any N consecutive words (or letters) in the text. Then at every step
   it searches for any random occurrence in the original text of the last
   N words (or letters) already printed and then prints the next word or
   letter. {EMACS} has a handy command for this. Here is a short example
   of word-based Dissociated Press applied to an earlier version of this
   Jargon File:

  wart: n. A small, crocky {feature} that sticks out of an array (C
  has no checks for this). This is relatively benign and easy to spot
  if the phrase is bent so as to be not worth paying attention to the
  medium in question.

   Here is a short example of letter-based Dissociated Press applied to
   the same source:

  window sysIWYG: n. A bit was named aften /bee't@/ prefer to use the
  other guy's re, especially in every cast a chuckle on neithout
  getting into useful informash speech makes removing a featuring a
  move or usage actual abstractionsidered interj. Indeed spectace
  logic or problem!

   A hackish idle pastime is to apply letter-based Dissociated Press to a
   random body of text and {vgrep} the output in hopes of finding an
   interesting new word. (In the preceding example, `window sysIWYG' and
   `informash' show some promise.) Iterated applications of Dissociated
   Press usually yield better results. Similar techniques called travesty
   generators have been employed with considerable satirical effect to
   the utterances of Usenet flamers; see {pseudo}.
    

Dissociated Press

   [Play on "Associated Press"; perhaps inspired by a reference
   in the 1949 Bugs Bunny cartoon "What's Up, Doc?"]  An
   algorithm for transforming any text into potentially humorous
   garbage even more efficiently than by passing it through a
   {marketroid}.  The algorithm starts by printing any N
   consecutive words (or letters) in the text.  Then at every
   step it searches for any random occurrence in the original
   text of the last N words (or letters) already printed and then
   prints the next word or letter.  {Emacs} has a handy command
   for this.  Here is a short example of word-based Dissociated
   Press applied to an earlier version of the {Jargon File}:

   wart:  A small, crocky {feature} that sticks out of
   an array (C has no checks for this).  This is relatively
   benign and easy to spot if the phrase is bent so as to be
   not worth paying attention to the medium in question.

   Here is a short example of letter-based Dissociated Press
   applied to the same source:

   window sysIWYG:  A bit was named aften /bee't*/ prefer
   to use the other guy's re, especially in every cast a
   chuckle on neithout getting into useful informash speech
   makes removing a featuring a move or usage actual
   abstractionsidered interj. Indeed spectace logic or problem!

   A hackish idle pastime is to apply letter-based Dissociated
   Press to a random body of text and {vgrep} the output in hopes
   of finding an interesting new word.  (In the preceding
   example, "window sysIWYG" and "informash" show some promise.)
   Iterated applications of Dissociated Press usually yield
   better results.  Similar techniques called "travesty
   generators" have been employed with considerable satirical
   effect to the utterances of {Usenet} flamers; see {pseudo}.

   [{Jargon File}]