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

James A. Landau JJJRLandau at NETSCAPE.COM
Sat May 18 13:17:58 UTC 2019


On Fri, 17 May 2019 23:59:38 Zone-0400 Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
<quote>
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]
<end quote>

I have run across this story twice, once in college about 1967 and once in a story in Analog Science Fiction entitled iirc "Hawk Among The Sparrows".  In both cases the it was not a "kludge" but a "coosh".

- Jim Landau

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