[common] A construction used to imbue the subject with campy menace,
usually with intent to ridicule. The ancestor of this term is a famous
Far Side cartoon from the 1980s in which a balloon
with a fierce face painted on it is passed off as the Floating Head
of Death
. Hackers and SF fans have been using the suffix of
Death
ever since to label things which appear to be vastly
threatening but will actually pop like a balloon if you prick them. Such
constructions are properly spoken in a tone of over-exagerrated
portentiousness: Behold! The Spinning - Pizza - of -
Death!
See
Blue Screen of Death, Ping O' Death,
Spinning Pizza of Death,
click of death. Compare Doom, X of.