A friend has broken up with her boyfriend and he is launching protracted salvos of nasty emails in her direction. As prose they are better than average. There have been no threats of violence and little profanity. The ex’s weapon of choice is a detailed critique of every aspect of her existence. We’ve all been dumped. It can be bruising but you get over it. This guy is performing an ongoing explication de texte not of a book but a human being. He has even taught me a new word: kludge.
The OED describes it as “an arbitrary
formation” and “jocular invention.” That is, it was coined by a
specific person -- Jackson W. Granholm, an engineer with Boeing and General
America Corp., in an article titled “How to Design a Kludge” in the February
1962 issue of Datamation.
In Granholm’s words, quoted by the Dictionary,
kludge is “an ill-assorted collection of poorly-matching parts, forming a
distressing whole” The OED adds, “especially in Computing, a machine, system, or
program that has been improvised or ‘bodged’ together; a hastily improvised and
poorly thought-out solution to a fault or ‘bug’.”
The Dictionary gives six citations, all from
computing or electronics publications. It seems related to such phrases as “jury-rigged”
or “jerry-built” – in other words, improvised, and probably badly. It’s a
comically ugly word I would like to see a writer of light verse work into a
poem. Think of the rhyming opportunities – budge,
fudge, judge, nudge, sludge, smudge, trudge. And remember
Dr. Johnson’s definition of lexicographer:
“a writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing
the original, and detailing the signification of words.”
[ADDENDUM, 10-13:
An old friend rises to the occasion:
"There once was a dandy named Fudge
Whose groin was an unsightly kludge.
'Is it really so foul?'
Asked his girl with a scowl,
So he undressed and said, 'you be the judge.'"]
2 comments:
I am not certain how often, if ever, I have heard the word spoken, but I always supposed that it had a long u. Technologists and writers on technology have put some work into tracing the word, and I don't whether anyone has done better than the OED--it has been years since I read a discussion.
I find it bizarre that anyone would refer to a human being as a kludge, though the gentleman's whole correspondence seems unhinged. I think that it was Empson who recounted hearing Eliot saying that he made a study of letters, and that where most people went wrong was that they took them to a mailbox and dropped them in rather than simply throwing them into the fireplace. Of course with email one doesn't have that walk to the mailbox to give one time to reconsider.
George is correct. When spoken, kludge rhymes with stooge.
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