hysterical reasons

(Or "hysterical raisins") A variant on the stock phrase "for

historical reasons", indicating specifically that something

must be done in some stupid way for backward compatibility,

and moreover that the feature it must be compatible with was

the result of a bad design in the first place. "All IBM PC

video adaptors have to support MDA text mode for hysterical

reasons." Compare bug-for-bug compatible.

[Jargon File]