MEGO

Four-letter acronym. My Eyes Glaze Over. Example: Aunt Paloma's reaction when you try to explain your use of Linux, the Choice of a G(uh)NU Generation, or the difference between free and free. That's Bad MEGO, since you're trying to communicate. Good MEGO is a weapon: a politician uses it to avoid scrutiny - e.g. an explanation of the minutiae of a tax cut or the shell game of the Social Security surplus. Your mind will drift toward thoughts of daffodils and ponies.

MEGO /me'goh/ or /mee'goh/

[`My Eyes Glaze Over', often `Mine Eyes Glazeth (sic) Over', attributed to the futurologist Herman Kahn] Also `MEGO factor'. 1. n. A handwave intended to confuse the listener and hopefully induce agreement because the listener does not want to admit to not understanding what is going on. MEGO is usually directed at senior management by engineers and contains a high proportion of TLAs. 2. excl. An appropriate response to MEGO tactics. 3. Among non-hackers, often refers not to behavior that causes the eyes to glaze, but to the eye-glazing reaction itself, which may be triggered by the mere threat of technical detail as effectively as by an actual excess of it.

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.