‘Dickover’ Makes It Into The Guardian

Stuart Heritage, writing for The Guardian, under the splendid headline “Dickovers, Baggravation and Botiquette: 18 New Words to Describe Our Tech Hellscape”:

The “dickover” is the scourge of the modern age. Coined in May by John Gruber, a tech writer, it is defined as “a modal panel, popover, or curtain presented by a website or app, deliberately obscuring its own content to frustrate the user”. Essentially, it is the thing (or more often, things) you have to click away in order to read the thing you wanted to read. It is the “accept cookies” box, the “allow notifications?” box, the “sign in with Google” box, the pop-up video box, etc. We shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that dickovers are the only terrible thing about technology in 2026. Until now, though, we have lacked the vocabulary to describe them, so here are some suggestions.

This was a delight to see, but it would have been nicer if it had included a link. I remain quite fond of my self-exemplifying definition.

Amongst Heritage’s suggested coinages, I like baggravation (maddening self-checkout retail kiosks) and Schrödinger’s Wi-Fi (public Wi-Fi, especially on trains and planes, that simultaneously does and does not exist).

Next stop for dickover: the OED.

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