[Ads-l] "kludgy, adj." - Word of the Day from the OED

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Nancy mentioned "Technobabble" which briefly referred to a World War
II joke about a kluge maker. Below is a 1947 citation with more
information. This tale may have nothing to do with the genesis of
"kludge" in the sense under examination. I don't know.

An article in 1947 reported that Mrs. Agnes N. Underwood of Russell
Sage College collected military folklore stories from veterans. One
shaggy-dog story concerned a "kluge maker".

Murgatroyd enlisted in the Navy and achieved nearly perfect scores in
the intelligence tests. When interviewed he claimed that he was a
"kluge maker" in civilian life. So, the Navy decided he should
continue this inscrutable activity, and he was assigned the job of
making kluges.

Date: February 17, 1947
Newspaper: The Troy Record
Newspaper Location: Troy, New York
Article:  Sage Teacher Collects Service "Folklore" from GI Veterans In
College English Classes (Continuation title "GI Folklore")
Author: John A. Goldsmith
Start Page 7, Quote Page 11, Column 4
Database: Newspapers.com

[Begin excerpt]
A few days later Murgatroyd was called in to see the Captain again. He
was told that the Admiral was about to pay an official visit and that
he would expect to see a finished kluge. Murgatroyd was instructed to
have a faultless kluge ready for the admiral--and he was promoted to
kluge maker first class.

The night before the Admiral's visit, Murgatroyd was busy with his
equipment, and when the day dawned he was ready. When called by the
Admiral, he exhibited a small but impressive array of screws and
wires, nuts and bolts.

"It looks fine," the Admiral said, coughing nervously, "Let's see how
it works." The Admiral was a practical man.

Murgatroyd, flustered but undaunted, stepped to the rail and as the
Admiral watched, the kluge slipped from Murgatroyd's shaking hands.

As it hit the water, the Admiral heard it plainly, it went, "K-k-l-l-uu-ge."
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 9:49 AM Nancy Friedman <wordworking at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> There's a long discussion of "kluge" (the original spelling) in John A.
> Barry's "Technobabble" (1991). Several of his sources from the electronics
> and aerospace industries give anecdotal support to the word's origins in
> the mid- to late 1950s. One source says *kluge* was coined in 1956 by
> Bernie Kravitz, who worked at General Electric's Heavy Military Equipment
> Division in Syracuse, NY. According to this source, *kluge* was an acronym
> for Kravitz's Large Unwieldy Giant Enigma.
>
> Nancy Friedman
> Chief Wordworker
> www.wordworking.com
> http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com
> tel 510 652-4159
> cel 510 304-3953
> twitter  Fritinancy
>
>
> On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 5:56 AM Martin Kaminer <martin.kaminer at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > This has *got* to be older than 1970, no?
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> > From: <oedwotd at oup.com>
> > Date: Thu, May 16, 2019 at 3:33 AM
> > Subject: "kludgy, adj." - Word of the Day from the OED
> > To: <OEDWOTD-AMER-L at webber.uk.hub.oup.com>
> >
> > Your word for Thursday 16th May is: kludgy, adj.
> >
> > kludgy, adj.
> > [‘Made or designed in an awkward, makeshift, or haphazard manner;
> > inelegant; not user-friendly.’]
> > Pronunciation: Brit. /ˈklʌdʒi/, /ˈkluːdʒi/,  U.S. /ˈkludʒi/
> > Forms:  19– cludgey,   19– cludgy,   19– kludgey,   19– kludgy,   19–
> > klugy.
> > Origin: Formed within English, by derivation. Etymons: kludge n., -y
> > suffix1.
> > Etymology: <  kludge n. + -y suffix1.
> >  slang (chiefly Computing).
> >   Made or designed in an awkward, makeshift, or haphazard manner;
> > inelegant; not user-friendly.
> > 1970  L. Uhr Flexible Ling. Pattern Recognition(Univ. Wisconsin
> > Computer Sci. Dept. Techn. Rep. 103) 40 They seem to be rather kludgey
> > systems, hard to code and refine.
> > 1971 Electronic Equipm. Engin.  Jan. 42/2 This arrangement looks good
> > but it's a bit klugy so the set-up procedure is slow.
> > 1984 PC  13 Nov. 131/2 This design is a kludgy way to handle RAM.
> > 1992 Personal Computer World  Feb. 269/3 After using a number of
> > Windows-based programs DOS feels kludgy.
> > 2010 Atlantic Monthly  July 80/1 People will be more likely to pay for
> > consumer-friendly apps..than they are to subscribe to the same old
> > kludgy Web site they have been using freely for years.
> > ________________________________
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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