male answer syndrome

n.

The tendency for some men to answer a question even when they don't know the answer. Also: MAS.

Example Citations:

Try an experiment. Ask a male friend a question, something completely outside his sphere of expertise.

Will you get an answer? Chances are, you will. The male friend is exhibiting behavior known as Male Answer Syndrome. It's the compulsion by many individuals (mostly men, but sometimes women) to answer questions readily, regardless of knowledge.

— Jean Godden, "Males Have the Answers, Even if They Don't," The Seattle Times, February 9, 1992

And Hackett may discuss "Male Answer Syndrome," the sex-linked compulsion to answer any and all questions whether or not one has an answer.

— Susan Paynter, "Crossing Pine Street is risky business," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 26, 1997

Earliest Citation:

The inability of the American male to respond "I don't know" to a question has been dubbed by its discoverer Male Answer Syndrome. Wall Street — as well as the computer industry — is rife with sufferers of MAS. Can this dread affliction be treated?

— Jerry Lazar and William Terdoslavich, "Random access," Computer System News, December 11, 1989

Notes:

Reader David Chase passes along an earlier citation:

Sam Hurt, The Mind's Eyebeam, pp 71-72, 1986. He, in turn, credits David Stansbury in the margin of the comic.

Reader Alex Moss concurs:

I first heard the phrase "Male Answer Syndrome" in "Eyebeam," a comic strip at UT (University of Texas at Austin) in the mid-1980s. I couldn't give you an exact date for this particular coinage, but if memory serves me, the phrase was introduced by Eyebeam's girlfriend Sally — she accused him of suffering from "MAS," he asked what that is, and the rest is history. I would actually post it on your site under "MAS." Your post is dated 1998, though the citation from the Seattle Times itself doesn't have a date on it, perhaps it's older. Anyway, the author of the comic is Sam Hurt, I don't know him but here's his home page:

http://www.samhurt.com/: http://www.samhurt.com/

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Category:

Men and Women

Here's the 1st of I think 3 comics.

http://eyebeam.com/1985/index.php?num=167I wrote to Sam Hurt years ago to ask if he had a citation for the David Stansbury article, and he sent me a physical copy of the January 1983 issue of "third coast", which contained Stansbury's article.

There's a big interview with Sam Hurt in the same issue, which is how I imagine he became aware of MAS.