‘Dickover’ Makes It Into The Guardian
Stuart Heritage, writing for The Guardian, under the splendid headline “Dickovers, Baggravation and Botiquette: 18 New Words to Describe Our Tech Hellscape”: The “dickover” is the scourge of the modern age. Coined in May by John Gruber, a tech writer, it is defined as “a modal panel, popover, or curtain presented by a website or app, deliberately obscuring its own content to frustrate the user”.…
In a recent article for The Guardian, Stuart Heritage introduced 18 new words to describe the various technological frustrations that plague our lives in the year 2026. The term that caught the most attention was "dickover," coined by tech writer John Gruber in May. A dickover is defined as a modal panel, popover, or curtain presented by a website or app, purposely obscuring its own content to frustrate the user.
These are the boxes that ask you to accept cookies, allow notifications, or sign in with Google, as well as pop-up video boxes and other similar interruptions that prevent you from reaching the content you initially intended to view. Heritage highlighted several potential coinages for these digital annoyances, with baggravation being his favorite, describing the aggravating experience of maddening self-checkout kiosks in retail stores.
Another suggested term, Schrödinger's Wi-Fi, refers to public Wi-Fi connections that exist and do not exist simultaneously, particularly on trains and airplanes. Heritage expressed his delight at seeing the term dickover included in the newspaper, but would have preferred it to have a clickable link. Ultimately, he hopes that dickover will make its way into the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
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