Unglued about zlepenec

John Dunn John.Dunn at GLASGOW.AC.UK
Fri Nov 25 10:29:18 UTC 2011


You could perhaps have ' an unlikely rag-bag', though any implications of forthcoming ungluing are a bit indirect.  An alternative might be something like 'a ramshackle rag-bag'.  It sounds just about all right to me, and google comes up with a fair few examples, but the more pedantic among us may feel it is too mixed a metaphor.   

John Dunn.
________________________________________
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Martin Votruba [votruba+slangs at PITT.EDU]
Sent: 25 November 2011 01:33
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Unglued about zlepenec

Dear colleagues, thank you all, you have helped me a lot with this. If anyone can still find the time, could you, please, consider the "fragility" of zlepenec in political contexts, where that implication comes to the foreground.

Here's the list by frequency and then alphabetized. Would any of the words and phrases be more likely to go together with comments predicting that the glued-together hack job is likely to get unglued (and be expressive to boot)?

For instance, the commentators and combative politicians do not use the word gula's~, although it can have the same implications as in English, because no matter how incongruous, goulash will not disintegrate back into its constituent parts, nor does the word imply the likelihood of disintegration.

2x a grab bag + a rag-bag
2x a hodgepodge
2x a mishmash
a chunk
a clump
a gallimaufry
a hash
a hunk
a lumping together
a motley assemblage
a patchwork
a wad
a clumped-together X
a ragtag X
a slap-dash X
a X chunk
a X clump
a X lump

Examples of comments:

Of course they're coming apart, they're just a zlepenec.
The pre-election zlepenec was put together for purely utilitarian purposes.
The parties formed a zlepenec that will fall apart as soon as the election is over.
Such a zlepenec can't hold together for even a year after the elections.
The zlepenec contains parties from the permissive Greens to the forbidding Catholics.
You formed a zlepenec, that's why you're already breaking up.

Would premodifiers like flimsy, brittle (probably not frail, fragile, etc., which can lean toward sympathy) help?


Martin

votruba "at" pitt "dot" edu

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