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Sister Wives
Sister Wives is a TLC reality series (2010–) about Kody Brown, his legal wife Meri, spiritual wives Janelle, Christine, and Robyn, their plural marriage, the Brown v. Buhman lawsuit, and the family's later collapse.
Sit-in
Sit-in: a nonviolent direct-action tactic of occupying a space and refusing to leave, also called sit-down. Known for the 1960 Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins, 1936–37 labor sit-down strikes, and the 28-day 1977 Section 504 occupation.
Situational judgment test
A situational judgment test (SJT) is a psychometric assessment presenting hypothetical work or social scenarios with response options, scored against an expert key, used in personnel selection and research.
Situationist International
The Situationist International (Internationale situationniste) was a Marxist avant-garde group founded in 1957 at Cosio d'Arroscia, Italy, and dissolved in 1972, known for the dérive, détournement, Debord's Society of the Spectacle, and its influence on May 1968 and punk.
Six Thinking Hats
Six Thinking Hats, Edward de Bono's 1985 parallel-thinking method: a group wears six colored hats in turn (white facts, red feelings, black risks, yellow benefits, green creativity, blue process) to structure discussion and decisions.
Sixties Scoop
The Sixties Scoop, also known as the Canada Scoops, was the mass removal of Indigenous children in Canada to non-Indigenous homes from the late 1950s into the 1980s.
Siyaram Baba
Siyaram Baba (सियाराम बाबा), Hindu ascetic saint of Bhatyan Ashram, Khargone, Madhya Pradesh, on the Narmada; Hanuman devotee who took only Rs 10 donations; died 11 December 2024, officially aged 94 despite viral claims of 110 to 188 years.
Skill
Skill: learned proficient task performance (ease, speed, accuracy) built through extensive practice, also called skill learning. Covers deliberate practice (Ericsson 1993), meta-analyses showing about 19% of variance explained, and practice design.
Skinhead
Skinhead: youth subculture from working-class London, late 1960s, offshoot of mods with Jamaican ska and reggae influence; later split into racist, traditional, and anti-racist (SHARP) factions worldwide.
Skræling
Skræling (Old Norse skrælingi) is the derogatory Norse term for the indigenous peoples of Vínland and Greenland, first written in the Íslendingabók (c. 1122–33), possibly from skrá 'dry skin', later meaning weak or wretched person in Norwegian.
Skuf
Skuf (скуф) is Russian internet slang, since about 2018, for an unkempt, passive middle-aged man; it derives from Dvach moderator Aleksei Skuf'in, spawned derivatives like skufidon and oskufit'sya, and placed second in the 2024 word-of-year results.
Slacktivism
Slacktivism (slactivism), also called clicktivism or hashtag activism, is low-effort online support for causes, coined positively in 1995 by Fred Clark and Dwight Ozard, now a pejorative with mixed research verdicts.
Slavery among Native Americans in the United States
Slavery among Native Americans in the United States: Indigenous captivity practices, European enslavement of Native people (2.5-5 million estimate), the Southeastern Indian slave trade of 1685-1715, and chattel slavery practiced by the Five Civilized Tribes until the 1866 treaties.
Slavery in India
Slavery in India spans ancient dāsa servitude, Mughal domestic and military slavery, colonial-era abolition by the Indian Slavery Act of 1843, and continuing debt bondage under the 1976 Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act.
Slavery in Mauritania
Slavery in Mauritania is hereditary, descent-based servitude of Haratines to Beydane masters. Abolished by ordinance in 1981, criminalized in 2007, strengthened by 2015 and 2020 laws; estimates range from 43,000 to 149,000 enslaved.
Slavs
The Slavs are a European ethno-linguistic group speaking Slavic languages (Indo-European), first recorded by Byzantines as Sclaveni in the 6th century; divided into South, East, and West branches, with debated origins and ancient DNA evidence of 6th–8th century migration.
Slim Keith
Slim Keith, born Nancy Gross (some sources Mary Raye Gross), was an American socialite and style icon, wife of Howard Hawks, Leland Hayward, and Sir Kenneth Keith, and a Capote swan cut off by "La Côte Basque, 1965."
Slippery slope
Slippery slope argument (SSA), also called the slippery slope fallacy: an argument that an initial action will likely lead through stages to an unacceptable outcome. Variants are empirical, logical, conceptual; strength tracks probability, utility, and similarity between slope endpoints.
Sloane Ranger
Sloane Ranger, also Sloane or Sloanie, a British informal label for a young upper-class Londoner in country-style clothes; coined by Peter York in Harpers & Queen, October 1975, from Sloane Square plus the Lone Ranger, and codified in the 1982 Official Sloane Ranger Handbook.
Slovaks
Slovaci, a West Slavic nation native to Slovakia speaking Slovak; 85.8% of Slovakia's 2001 population, shaped by Hungarian rule, Czechoslovakism, and the 1993 dissolution of Czechoslovakia.
Slovenes
Slovenes are a South Slavic people of the Eastern Alps centered on Slovenia, speaking Slovene (about two million speakers). Defined by Slavic 6th–7th-century settlement, Carantania, Trubar's 1550 Reformation printing, Habsburg rule, Yugoslav statehood, and 1991 independence.
Slut
Slut is an offensive English word for a woman thought to have many sexual partners, first attested c. 1400 meaning an untidy woman; central to slut-shaming, the sexual double standard, and SlutWalk reclamation.
Slut-shaming
Slut-shaming, also called slut bashing, is the stigmatization of women and girls for actual or perceived sexual behavior or appearance. Key facts: sexual double standard, 50% of girls affected, SlutWalk protest movement.
SlutWalk
SlutWalk: transnational feminist protest movement founded in Toronto in 2011 after a police officer's victim-blaming remark at York University; marches against slut-shaming and rape culture, spread to over 50 countries.
Small-world experiment
Milgram's small-world experiment: chain-letter study measuring acquaintance paths to a Boston stockbroker; 64 of 296 chains completed, median 5.2 intermediaries; basis of six degrees of separation, critiqued by Kleinfeld and replicated by Dodds, Muhamad, and Watts.
Smile
Smile: facial expression from zygomaticus major contraction; the Duchenne smile adds orbicularis oculi (AU6). Distinguished from other facial expressions by reward, affiliative, and dominance functional types, Darwin-Duchenne history, facial feedback effects, and cultural variation in meaning.
Smoking in the United States
Smoking in the United States covers tobacco use from colonial cash-crop era to today: the Bonsack machine and Duke built the cigarette industry, smoking peaked near 42% of adults, the 1964 Surgeon General report and the 1998 Master Settlement drove declines to 9.1% by 2025.
Smurl haunting
The Smurl haunting: claimed demonic activity in Jack and Janet Smurl's West Pittston, Pennsylvania duplex, publicized in 1986, promoted by Ed and Lorraine Warren, investigated skeptically by CSICOP, and adapted in The Haunted (1988) and The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025).
Snark subreddits
Snark subreddits, such as r/DuggarsSnark and r/fundiesnarkuncensored, are Reddit communities where snarkers criticize and gossip about a specific influencer, celebrity, YouTuber, or show, studied as anti-fandom.
Snob
Snob: an English word first recorded in the 1770s meaning cobbler, later popularized by Thackeray for a person admiring wealth or rank; also the snob effect, a negative network externality in economics.