origins of "kludge"

David H. Barr dhbarr at gmail.com
Wed Mar 30 08:48:59 CST 2005


On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 14:36:26 +0000, Jules Richardson
<julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-03-30 at 22:51 +1000, Huw Davies wrote:
> > On 30/03/2005, at 6:01 PM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote:

> > > Doubtless from the Scots word "cludgie", meaning outside toilet.
> > > Since we don't have those any more, it refers to any rather squalid
> > > toilet - think about the bookmaker scene in Trainspotting.

> > You mean you actually understand the dialog in Trainspotting - my
> > housekeeper who originally comes from  Glasgow admits she can't
> > understand much of the dialog :-)

> Back on topic, does the correct pronunciation of kludge contain the 'd',
> or is it silent? 98% of people here in the UK seem to pronounce the d,
> but I've heard a few who don't. Mind you, 'bodge' is an equivalent and
> more commonly heard over here than kludge.

Two separate words with different pronunciation, as per the jargon
file and earlier discussion here.  Kludge (kl-uh-j) and Kluge
(kl-oo-j).  I was surprised to find that a) I was wrong in assuming
they were net-variants of the same term, and b) anyone would care to
differentiate.

-dhbarr.


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