Via Antenna, the mytheme of The Procrustean Bed, found on a site devoted to E-Prime. Intertwingularity, eh.

“Myth says that the ancient Procrustes would make visitors fit into his bed by stretching their bodies, or cutting off their legs.

From this story we get the metaphor about forcing things into a Procrustean Bed.

Instead of trying to force reality into the Procrustean Bed of fixed definitions…

…what would happen if you made renewable descriptions?

As time goes by, you adjust your definitions to take into account the new things you have learned.”

» E-Primer: The Procrustean Bed