Ophelimity

Neetu Chandak of Seneca Falls, N.Y., spelled the economic term "ophelimity" as if she were asking a question, then exclaimed "Yes!" and raised her arms when told she had spelled the word correctly. ❋ Unknown (2009)

She correctly spelled her first word in the finals, "ophelimity". ❋ Unknown (2009)

But soon thereafter it was proved that even this stronger axiom does not entail the existence of an ophelimity function. ❋ NICHOLAS GEORGESCU-ROEGEN (1968)

The result is that choice no longer yields indifference lines and hence cannot be represented by an ophelimity index. ❋ NICHOLAS GEORGESCU-ROEGEN (1968)

Unfortunately, even “ophelimity,” the term coined by Vilfredo Pareto to cleanse the terminology of any vernacular overtones, did not prevail. ❋ NICHOLAS GEORGESCU-ROEGEN (1968)

Today the notion of an ordinal utility dominates consumer theory, the central problem of which is how to derive an ophelimity function from directly observable budget data. ❋ NICHOLAS GEORGESCU-ROEGEN (1968)

To this transparent definition, Samuelson added only an equally transparent axiom: If a budget reveals that the basket A is preferred to B, no budget can reveal that B is preferred to A. Samuelson claimed that this axiom alone suffices for deriving by integration the indifference varieties and hence for constructing an ophelimity function. ❋ NICHOLAS GEORGESCU-ROEGEN (1968)