[Commodore users; perh. a deliberate phonetic mangling of boolean
variable?] Any variable that doesn't actually hold or control state,
but must nevertheless be declared, checked, or set. A typical
balloonian variable started out as a flag attached to some
environment feature that either became obsolete or was planned but
never implemented. Compatibility concerns (or politics attached to
same) may require that such a flag be treated as though it were
{live}.
[glossary]