Unglued about zlepenec

[Alina Israeli]

clumping/clumped together; not a noun though

For ex. I'm severely irritated that people keep clumping together the  
tea party with the republican party. The tea party should not be  
identified with the republicans otherwise what is the point? http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1216105/pg1


On Nov 23, 2011, at 1:32 PM, Martin Votruba wrote:

> 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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Alina Israeli
Associate Professor of Russian
LFS, American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave.
Washington DC 20016
(202) 885-2387 	fax (202) 885-1076
aisrael at american.edu

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