1. <convention> A word used in electronic mail and news
messages to tag utterances as surrealist mind-play or humour,
especially in connection with Discordianism and elaborate
conspiracy theories. "I heard that David Koresh is sharing an
apartment in Argentina with Hitler. (Fnord.)" "Where can I
fnord get the Principia Discordia from?"
2. <programming> A metasyntactic variable, commonly used by
hackers with ties to Discordianism or the Church of the
SubGenius.
The word "fnord" was invented in the "Illuminatus!" trilogy by
Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.