|
|
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467 |
From an AP story on the wire today:
"Computer models drawn by scientists at the Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predict the spill will wash out to sea and not glom onto the shores . . .."
I thought glom had a differednt meaning: "I would glom onto the meaning of the statement" being something akin to "I would figure (puzzle) out or perhaps stumble upon the meaning of the statement."
It's not a word I would use. Would any of you use it? And if so, how?
TEd
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475 |
I might use it, rarely, and to me it means to grab onto something.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636 |
I agree with jheem, but with the addition of "and not let go"
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
I've used it, and it has a sticky quality to it. figure it out, grab onto it, grok it... 
formerly known as etaoin...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636 |
Ah! You mean like a little kid with a booger on his finger? 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475 |
Just looked it up. Supposed to be from a Scots word.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
like a little kid with a...well. I used to use it... 
formerly known as etaoin...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661 |
I pronounced this as 'boo'-'ger' read this as "one who boogs". So, 'booged' must be the end at which the means "gloming" arrived?!?! 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
I believe that you have achieved the glomization of the boog...
formerly known as etaoin...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 619
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 619 |
glom onto the shores
Which came first I wonder? "Glom" or "conglomerate".
Oil spills glom onto shores. Oil spillers glom onto shares.
It's easier to punish the shores than the shares ... which probably explains why the spills keep occurring.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
I've heard the word used only in the context of a person attaching himself/herself to someone else (or a group of people) but that person is not really wanted. The person who is glomming is considered undesirable in some way.
The conversation usually goes like this..."yeah, we just said hi to her while passing in the hall, and she glommed onto us and wouldn't leave us alone"
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788 |
Is glom ever used without "onto"?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 619
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 619 |
Is glom ever used without onto?
Good question, Father Steve.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines "glom" as a verb as follows:
"To seize upon or latch onto something".
Does this take us back to "hoi polloi" or "the hoi polloi"?
If "onto" is included in the definition, then "glom onto" is as wrong as "the hoi polloi".
But everyone says "glom onto", so we may as well glom onto the bandwagon.
On 2nd thought, I think it depends on the usage.
A person can climb a fire escape ... if they are already on it. But you have to "climb onto" a fire escape before you can actually begin to climb it. (Ditto climbing stairs if the first step is obstructed.)
The same holds true with "glom".
An oil spill is carried by the tide until it "gloms onto" a shoreline.
On the other hand, a military invader "gloms" a beachhead. The shoreline is just the place where "the glom", like "the climb", begins.
A person who intends to take [and keep] an advantage, will "glom" an advantage.
If the taking is more symbolic than real, like occupying a public place as a protest, then the protesters are simply "glomming onto" an advantage.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526 |
I use the word perhaps every three or four months. I don't know what it's supposed to mean or where I picked it up at - though I think it must have been hanging out with other computerists. I get the same sense of "stickiness" that others report, but also the notion of attractiveness - like electrical or gravitational. Oddly, at the moment I can't think of exactly HOW I use it, but I'm pretty sure I've never used it to mean "understand."
It's one of those words on which I latch when I'm groping for a more discriptive term and think, "Well, this pretty much conveys what I intend."
k
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
>never used [glom] to mean "understand."
I'd use 'grok' in that instance. :)
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Being the old harrumphy(®) prescriptivist that I am, I prefer to keep grok in its sense of comprehending completely, including all the ramifications and unintended consequences. This means that, for lack of a real world referrent, it is a word that is never used.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475 |
Grok, from the Martian, 'to comprehehnd, understand completely'.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788 |
This discussion makes me feel like a stranger in a strange land.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 619
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 619 |
This discussion makes me feel like a stranger in a strange land.
If it gloms onto you, you will grok it.
But it's sticky like a booger, and you might have to wash your hands afterwards.
I think that pretty much sums it up, Father Steve.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624 |
Isn't it interesting just how a word like "grok", sourced from a book and never used anywhere else previously, can become well-enough known that a conversation about it here doesn't actually have everyone asking (a) what it means, and (b) where it comes from?
I wonder if Robert the Misogynist .. er, Heinlein would really want to be remembered for just ONE word, given his prodigous, if repetitive, literary output?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 619
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 619 |
I wonder if Robert the Misogynist .. er, Heinlein would really want to be remembered for just ONE wordAn ingenious playwright can create an entire scene "out" of ONE word. ONE word can germinate an entirely new way of looking at or investigating reality, for instance, the word "biosystems" which is said to be sweeping through academia today. ONE Word can even launch a universe, or all the universes, so the bible instructs. Any person who creates ONE word which ignites untold thousands of minds and sets them racing off into untold thousands of new directions, has a place in history for all time, wouldn't you say? Consider our own Faldo ... who inspired "adroitless". How much faldage has Faldage toiled so fruitlessly to publish all of these many years without a single word of it springing to mind when it might serve some useful purpose? Consider then the triumphant singularity of a single word, just ONE word, in the life of our very own Faldage. If Faldo never inspires or creates another single new word, can anyone say Faldo is livid in vain? Even if no-one else were to remember "adroitless", "adroitless" will always be on the tip of Faldo's tongue. Some will say, that's exactly where "adroitless" belongs. [Just kiddin, Faldage. Male bonding stuff, ya know.]
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624 |
Funny ... I thought that Faldage's most noteworthy coinage (not that he got paid, or anything) was "yeahbut©"
My comment about "grok" was expressing some surprise about a word which is not in the general literature but which is fairly generally known and understood. A straw poll in my work team shows that everyone in the team knows it and what it means and that most of them know who came up with it and name of the book it was in. Only a few have actually read the book. I was reminded, however, that it was shamelessly ripped off and used by the creator the "Judge Dredd" comic.
My team is made up in roughly equal numbers of IT geeks and bankers.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Yeahbut© was, I believe, attually® tsuwm's.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624 |
Geez, you really don't know when to keep stum, do you? And if you did coin "adroitlessly", when did you do it and where is the evidence that we need to present to the OED?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
I din't never say I coined 'adroitless' An if you thinks I'm gone try and steal tsuwm's thunder an risk having faldage come up in his dictionary meaning 'thunderthief' you best recalibrate yo thinking cap.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
... and *I thought it was maverick.
apparently, stum's *not the word
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 619
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 619 |
Re: "faldage" showing up in Tsuwm's dictionary as meaning "thunderthief"I would protest that meaning myself, Faldage. Any faithful follower of "faldage" would. If "faldage" can't stand for what it means, let it stand for nothing at all. In fact, let it stand for "nothing at all". Nil vix labor. English translation: "making the easy look difficult; adroitless. syn: faldage."
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Everybody has thousands of glomeruli:
glomerulus
SYLLABICATION: glo·mer·u·lus
PRONUNCIATION: gl-mry-ls
NOUN: Inflected forms: pl. glo·mer·u·li (-l)
Anatomy 1. A small cluster or mass of blood vessels or nerve fibers. 2. A tuft of capillaries situated within a Bowman's capsule at the end of a renal tubule in the vertebrate kidney that filters waste products from the blood and thus initiates urine formation.
ETYMOLOGY: New Latin, diminutive of Latin glomus, glomer-, ball.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 619
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 619 |
Just ONE word
In "The Graduate," Mr. McGuire said to a young Dustin Hoffman: "Just one word... plastics."
It is interesting how an entire culture could glom onto the single word "grok", Capfka.
It is also interesting how a single word, namely, "plastics" in "The Graduate", can define an entire culture, as well as the lead character's complete estrangement from that culture.
Interesting, it only took ONE word to make Dustin Hoffman's character feel like "a stranger in a strange land".
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
thangyookinely Jawelnofine!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
It is also interesting how a single word, namely, "plastics" in "The Graduate", can define an entire culture I was going to say that you'd have to know the context behind the word, but in the case of "plastics", I realized this does rather suit the U.S.!  What about other one-word def.'s for various cultures?
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,330
Members9,182
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
0 members (),
1,018
guests, and
1
robot. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
