Don’t Repeat Yourself - Lauren Ipsum: A Story About Computer Science and Other Improbable Things - page 44

Chapter 9. Don't Repeat Yourself
Laurie and Xor set out from Permute with their new map. They finally knew where they
were, where they were going, and how to get there. It was all right there on paper.
“The places on this map have funny names,” said Laurie. “ Truncate . What's that?”
“To Truncate is to make something shorter by cutting off part of it. The town of Truncate has
very precise borders,” Xor said.
“Oh. So what's Axiom ?” Laurie asked.
“An Axiom is a rule that you pretend is true even if you don't know why it's true,” said Xor.
“Really?”
“Surely. My cousin Nand taught me all about it. She's a Euclidosaurus.”
“You're making stuff up again, Xor.”
“No, it's just one of those things,” the lizard shrugged, turning gray-green. “Either you be-
lieve in Axioms or you don't.”
“Oh yeah? I bet you don't know what a Furfnoodle is,” Laurie said.
“It's a . . . I mean, um. I give up. What is it?”
“A Furfnoodle is a kind of bird,” she said. “With long, blue feathers! And it loves eating little
lizards.”
“Really?” Xor looked worried and checked the sky for blue feathers.
“No. But if I ever see a big, blue bird that loves to eat lizards, I'm going to call it a Furf-
noodle.”
“You really shouldn't make up words like that,” said Xor.
“If you can make up words, so can I,” Laurie said.