Word.ws English Dictionary

IBM Pollyanna Principle

IBM Pollyanna Principle proper noun: the axiom that "machines should work; people should think".

Proper noun

the IBM Pollyanna Principle

  1. The axiom that "machines should work; people should think".
    • e.g. machines should do all the hard work, freeing people to think (hence the reference to Pollyanna)
    • e.g. most of the world's major problems result from machines that fail to work, and people who fail to think.

Origin of IBM Pollyanna Principle

From Pollyanna principle, and in reference to the technology company IBM.

Questions about IBM Pollyanna Principle

What does IBM Pollyanna Principle mean?
IBM Pollyanna Principle means the axiom that "machines should work; people should think".
What part of speech is IBM Pollyanna Principle?
IBM Pollyanna Principle is a proper noun.

Words near IBM Pollyanna Principle in the dictionary

  1. IBM
  2. IBM PC
  3. IBM PC clone
  4. IBM PC clones
  5. IBM PCs
  6. IBM Pollyanna Principle
  7. IBM-compatible
  8. IBM-compatibles
  9. IBMer
  10. IBMerese
  11. IBMers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: IBM Pollyanna Principle (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.

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