yak shaving

English

An illustration by David Revoy of the metaphor. The character Pepper is depicted literally shaving a yak.

Etymology

Coined by Carlin Vieri in his time at the MIT AI Lab (1993–1998) after viewing a segment at the end of a 1991 episode of The Ren and Stimpy Show. The segment featured “Yak Shaving Day,” a Christmas-like Holiday where participants hang diapers instead of stockings, stuff rubber boots with coleslaw, and watch for the shaven yak to float by in his enchanted canoe.

Pronunciation

• Audio (US)

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Noun

yak shaving (uncountable)

1. Any apparently useless activity which, by allowing one to overcome intermediate difficulties, allows one to solve a larger problem.

   I was doing a bit of yak shaving this morning, and it looks like it might have paid off.

2. A less useful activity done consciously or subconsciously to procrastinate about a larger but more useful task.

   I looked at a reference manual for my car just to answer one question, but I spent the whole afternoon with my nose buried in it, just yak shaving, and got no work done on the car itself.

   • For quotations using this term, see Citations:yak shaving.

See also

• bikeshedding
• when you're up to your neck in alligators, it's hard to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp