The word 'sod' has been used as a weak - sometimes even affectionate - term of "abuse" for a man since the early 1800s. 'Sod's Law', however, is as recent as 1970, when it made its first appearance in print in a 'New Statesman' article which contained the sentence: "Sod's Law is the force in nature which causes it to rain mostly at weekends, which makes you get flu when you are on holiday and which makes the phone ring when you have just got into the bath."