For the album by British rock band Spear of Destiny

Spear of Destiny (band)

Spear of Destiny is a British rock band, established in 1982 by singer and songwriter Kirk Brandon and bassist Stan Stammers. It has had an ever-changing line-up through the years.-Biography:...

, see Sod's Law (Spear of Destiny album).

Sod's law is a name for the axiom

Axiom

In traditional logic, an axiom or postulate is a proposition that is not proven or demonstrated but considered either to be self-evident or to define and delimit the realm of analysis. In other words, an axiom is a logical statement that is assumed to be true...

 "Anything that can go wrong, will". "Toast will always land butter side down" is often given as an example of Sod's law in action. The phrase is seemingly derived, at least in part, from the colloquialism

Colloquialism

A colloquialism is a word or phrase that is common in everyday, unconstrained conversation rather than in formal speech, academic writing, or paralinguistics. Dictionaries often display colloquial words and phrases with the abbreviation colloq. as an identifier...

 an "unlucky sod"; a term used to describe someone who has had some bad unlucky experience, and is usually used as a sympathetic reference to the person.

The term is still commonly used in Britain, though in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 the newer eponym

Eponym

An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...

ous "Murphy's law

Murphy's law

Murphy's law is an adage or epigram that is typically stated as: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong". - History :The perceived perversity of the universe has long been a subject of comment, and precursors to the modern version of Murphy's law are not hard to find. Recent significant...

" has become more popular.

Sod's law is similar to, but broader than, Murphy's law ("Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong"). For example, concepts such as "bad fortune will be tailored to the individual" and "good fortune will occur in spite of the individual's actions" are sometimes given as examples of Sod's law in action. This would broaden Sod's law to a general sense of being "mocked by fate". In these aspects it is similar to some definitions of irony

Irony

Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...

, particularly the irony of fate. Murphy's technological origin on John Stapp

John Stapp

John Paul Stapp, M.D., Ph.D., Colonel, USAF was a career U.S. Air Force officer, USAF flight surgeon and pioneer in studying the effects of acceleration and deceleration forces on humans...

's Project MX981 is more upbeat - it was a reminder to the engineers and team members to be cautious and make sure everything was accounted for, to let no stone be left unturned — not an acceptance of an uncaring uninfluencable fate.

Some examples of "bad fortune will be tailored to the individual" include:

• Ludwig van Beethoven
  Ludwig van Beethoven
  Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
  
  's loss of hearing—loss of hearing is bad fortune for anyone, but it is Sod's law that it would happen to a brilliant composer.
• Adolph Coors III
  Adolph Coors III
  Adolph Coors III was the grandson of Adolph Coors and heir to the Coors beer empire.-Biography:He was born on January 12, 1916 and attended Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire...
  
  , who was allergic to beer, was the heir to the Coors beer empire
  Coors Brewing Company
  The Coors Brewing Company is a regional division of the world's fifth-largest brewing company, the Canadian Molson Coors Brewing Company and is the third-largest brewer in the United States...
  
  —being allergic to beer is bad fortune for many, but it is Sod’s Law that someone allergic to beer would inherit a beer empire (and, due to a botched kidnapping attempt, die because of the empire's wealth, thus being killed by beer, if only indirectly).
• Lou Gehrig
  Lou Gehrig
  Henry Louis "Lou" Gehrig , nicknamed "The Iron Horse" for his durability, was an American Major League Baseball first baseman. He played his entire 17-year baseball career for the New York Yankees . Gehrig set several major league records. He holds the record for most career grand slams...
  
   developed amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)
  Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
  Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis , also referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a form of motor neuron disease caused by the degeneration of upper and lower neurons, located in the ventral horn of the spinal cord and the cortical neurons that provide their efferent input...
  
  , a paralyzing neurological disorder, but it is Sod's law that this would happen to one of the greatest athletes of all time. ALS is commonly called "Lou Gehrig's disease."

Some examples of "good fortune will occur in spite of the individual's actions" include

• If you take your raincoat and umbrella with you, it will be sunny—any attempt you make to control your destiny (in this case how wet you get) will be thwarted by fate.
• You move to another city, only to meet and fall in love with someone from your home town.