| klone
= K =
kluge
kludge 1. /klooj/ n.
Incorrect (though regrettably
common) spelling of kluge (US). These two words have been
confused in American usage since the early 1960s, and widely
confounded in Great Britain since the end of World War II.
2. [TMRC] A crock that works. (A long-ago "Datamation"
article by Jackson Granholme similarly said: "An ill-assorted
collection of poorly matching parts, forming a distressing
whole.") 3. v. To use a kludge to get around a problem. "I've
kludged around it for now, but I'll fix it up properly later."
This word appears to have derived from Scots `kludge' or
`kludgie' for a common toilet, via British military slang. It
apparently became confused with U.S. kluge during or after
World War II; some Britons from that era use both words in
definably different ways, but kluge is now uncommon in Great
Britain. `Kludge' in Commonwealth hackish differs in meaning from
`kluge' in that it lacks the positive senses; a kludge is something
no Commonwealth hacker wants to be associated too closely with.
Also, `kludge' is more widely known in British mainstream slang
than `kluge' is in the U.S.
--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.
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