To codge?

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Wed May 12 00:17:10 UTC 2010


At 5/11/2010 04:55 PM, Towse wrote:
>Perhaps he was saying "cadge together" and the pronunciation -- heard
>on BBC radio news -- got in the way.

It was pretty clearly "codge" to my New York ears, but of course I
don't know his pronunciations and I didn't see him spell it.  And the
Google hits are spelled "codge", and used with approximately the
sense I received.

I had looked at "cadge", and seen "I. Early senses.  {dag}1. trans. ?
To fasten, tie: cf. CADGEL v. (The early passages are obscure, and
for one or other the senses drive, toss, shake, draw, have been
proposed.) Obs."  But I thought it was too obscure and uncertain, and
this sense is unused since 1627 except for an 1875 dictionary of
local dialect (I assume -- it's "Lanc. Gloss.")

Joel

>On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 9:46 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> > A British Liberal Democratic politician (perhaps its current leader),
> > talking about why he wanted to take time to discuss the question of
> > forming a coalition government, said (BBC radio news, heard in
> > Boston):  "If you codge these things together ...".  Presumably here
> > having the same meaning as "cobble", "2. To put together or join
> > roughly or clumsily" -- that is, don't be hasty in repairing the situation.
> >
> > I don't see "codge" in the OED.  There are about 188 Google hits for
> > "codge together", some not appearing to have the connotation of
> > "roughly, in haste", but merely "collecting, gathering from
> > miscellaneous handy bits."
> >
> > Joel
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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