Unglued about zlepenec

[Martin Votruba]

I wonder whether anyone could suggest an English equivalent, you don't need to speak Slovak to help.

The question came up on a poli-sci panel at the ASEEES Convention, several native English speakers have been looking for an efficient word or phrase to use in their papers.

The Slovak word zlepenec has a well-established terminological use in the sense of the English "conglomerate" (a type of rock), which is not a problem, but it has another meaning.

It has been used in election campaigns for over a decade now to impute in a memorable way that some politicians are planning a coalition government that will be a cobbled-together, makeshift clump likely to come unglued at any time, or that they are running such a cabinet.

The colloquial word is also used outside of politics from comments on the results of sloppy work, to hockey and soccer teams, to computer games, to art criticism. The noun (derived from the participle zlepeny, "glued together") has five features in contemporary Slovak that should preferably be conveyed by a matching English equivalent. It is expressive (colorful, catchy), readily understandable (and fairly common), pejorative, refers to something composed of incongruous parts, and implies that it was put together intentionally (human agency).

Two possibilities:

a jumbled clump -- lacks "intentionality"
kludge -- not automatically pejorative and lacks "common use, understandability"

Can someone, kindly, help with a better equivalent?


Martin

votruba "at" pitt "dot" edu

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