"clusterfrig"

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Mon Apr 16 23:37:16 UTC 2012


Today's "Doonesbury" is quoted in Language Log,
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3905, by Mark Liberman, but
without definition, or discussion except the implication that it's a
euphemism.  Or perhaps Mark is referring to the entire utterance,
"Straight up? The war's a freaking clusterfrig", in which case he may
mean that "freaking" is the euphemism.

'Tain't in Urban Dictionary; #tagdef http://tagdef.com/poschterfrig
also treats it as not needing explanation (a "poschterfrig" is "A
failure far worse than a clusterfrig."); and it is not found by Google Books.

Please define, state what it is a euphemism for, and add to the
OED.  I don't think I can rely on "the idiot"s (Roland Burton Hedley,
III's) tweeted transcription of "Soldier: Gains are fragile!"

:-)

Joel

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



More information about the Ads-l mailing list