Betteridge's Law
Syllables: Bet·te·rid·ge's law/ˈbɛtɹɪd͡ʒɪz ˌlɔː/US/ˈbɛtɹɪd͡ʒəz ˌlɔ/
Betteridge's Law is the alternative letter-case form of Betteridge's law.
Proper noun capitalized: Betteridge's law
Betteridge's law
- An adage stating that any headline ending in a question mark can be correctly answered by the word "no".
- No, no, hell no. The true answer is that there is no one answer; that what works best is a dynamic combination of solitary, pair, and group work, depending on the context, using your best judgement. Paired programming definitely has its place. (Betteridge’s Law strikes again!) In some cases that...2012 March 3, Jon Evans, “Pair Programming Considered Harmful?”, in TechCrunch, archived from the original on 15 Jul 2017
- Conforming to Betteridge’s law of headlines, the answer is no – or at least, not yet.2014 February 6, James Temple, “Will Google Translate Let Us Talk to Aliens and Dolphins?: Google’s Peter Norvig Says, Umm, No”, in Recode, archived from the original on 12 Nov 2018
- Synonyms:
- Davis's law
Synonyms of Betteridge's Law
- Davis's law
Forms of Betteridge's Law
| alternative form | Betteridge's law of headlines |
|---|---|
| alternative form | Betteridge's Law |
Origin of Betteridge's Law
Named after British technology journalist Ian Betteridge who wrote about the phenomenon in a February 2009 online article, although the general concept is older.
Questions about Betteridge's Law
- What does Betteridge's Law mean?
- Betteridge's Law means an adage stating that any headline ending in a question mark can be correctly answered by the word "no".
- What is Betteridge's Law the alternative letter-case form of?
- Betteridge's Law is the alternative letter-case form of Betteridge's law.
- What part of speech is Betteridge's Law?
- Betteridge's Law is a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce Betteridge's Law?
- Betteridge's Law is pronounced /ˈbɛtɹɪd͡ʒɪz ˌlɔː/ (UK).
Words near Betteridge's Law in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Betteridge's Law (page history and authors); Betteridge's law (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Betteridge's law.wav.
Cite this entry: “Betteridge's Law.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/betteridge%27s_law. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.