Quote:
Originally posted by nutworld
Hey SFC, maybe you know..maybe not.
Wasn't KLUDGE a term used by computer geeks to describe, horrible computers in the late 80's ?
I'm asking just because you mentioned it. Not that you are a geek.
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*giggling*
Nut... you should know by now, I
AM a geek, and proud of it, too!
As for 'kludge', I was still a kid in the late '80s, and not really up on the nerdspeak yet, but... 'Kludge', as I know it, is a colloquial term functioning both a verb transitive and a noun. To kludge is to cobble together a functioning but inelegant combination of hardware and/or software to solve a particular problem. A kludge is the resultant Frankensteinian (<--- another giggle-word) creation.
(Okay, I got that much of the definition on my own, but being the dork I am, I had to go looking for more...)
Apparently the word's etymology is unknown, but it was first recorded in 1962.
The pronunciation I know and use rhymes with 'fudge', but evidently there is an alternate spelling and two pronunciations that are more common in the UK: 'kluge', which can be pronounced either to rhyme with 'luge' (with the 'e' left unvoiced) or as 'kloo-juh' (voicing the 'e' as an undefined schwa vowel but leaving the 'g' as a voiced alveo-palatal fricative)...
(Dammit, this would be so much easier in IPA --- International Phonetic Alphabet...)
*Nerdiness completely takes over and SFC is utterly unable to resist providing the attached IPA transcription for all three variants... and yes, she does actually own no less than four fonts specifically for IPA notations...*
Aaaaaaaaaaagggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!! Someone get me away from school NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Geekishly yours,
--- sweetstuff