STOLPER'S LAW - important philological principles for the decipherment of Akkadian:

Professor Stolper also has a healthy mythology surrounding him at the Oriental Institute. He is widely credited with the invention of "Stolper's Law," which stipulates that, when translating Akkadian, an unknown adjective is likely to mean "pure," and an unknown verb probably means "destroy."

(From the Matthew Stolper Wikipedia entry, via the Agade list.)