Bug

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Dr. Goodword
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Bug

Postby Dr. Goodword » Tue Sep 14, 2021 6:33 pm

• bug •


Pronunciation: bêg • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. An insect of any kind or creature resembling one. 2. A disease or cause thereof, as 'the flu bug'. 3. A glitch or defect, as 'a design bug'. 4. An obsession or enthusiasm, as 'the bicycling bug'. 5. Secret information, as 'put a bug in someone's ear'. 6. A hidden listening device, as 'plant a bug in someone's room'.

Notes: This word long ago became a verb with as many meanings as the noun: "to pester, annoy", "to leave hurriedly", "to remove bugs", and "to plant a bug (in sense 5 above)". The verb offers some chance of derivational family. Bugger may refer to someone who plants bugs, but the dialectal variants buggard and buggart both mean "specter, goblin".

In Play: The meanings following the first one are all metaphorical variants that have sped off in different directions. In the sense of "glitch", we find expressions like this: "It took a month to find the bug in Ferdi's computer program." In the sense of "obsession" we could hear something like this: "Ferdi got the computing bug when he was just thirteen years old."

Word History: Etymologists can't figure out where this word came from even though bugs are things with bad connotations and words with bad meanings that resemble it abound: bogey(man), bogle, bugger(man), bugaboo, boggard, all referring to something scary. Middle English bugge meant "scary ghost". It had a variant bogge which today is bogey. Bug apparently emerged from the same source as these. The question is: how did the reduction of size in the meaning occur? There is an urban legend that bug referring to a glitch emerged in 1947. According to this story, Grace Hopper, a computer scientist and naval officer, traced an error in the Mark II computer to a moth trapped in a relay. We even have a report of the incident with the moth taped to it. Unfortunately, Thomas Edison beat Hopper to this use of our word by a wide margin. According to the Pall Mall Gazette in 1889: "Mr. Edison, I was informed, had been up the two previous nights discovering 'a bug' in his phonograph . . . ." (We all need to give Bryan Goff a bow for his recommendation of today's Good Word, which has already aroused a lively conversation in the Suggestion Shop.)
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Philip Hudson
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Re: Bug

Postby Philip Hudson » Wed Sep 15, 2021 2:44 am

A buggy is a horse drawn conveyance. No one knows why. There are a mort of names for horse drawn conveyances with little guidance as to what they are like or how they differ. Does it matter? Does anyone care? My mother's family moved into the hinterlands with one covered wagon, two covered hacks, and a veritable remuda of equine mounts. Mother rode her horse Ribbon a good part of the way. She was 12 years old. She described a hack as a two wheeled one horse vehicle that was covered and had a large area behind the drivers seat. It amounted to a two wheel covered wagon. I really think a hack is in the eye of the imaginer.
It is dark at night, but the Sun will come up and then we can see.

Gene Engene
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Re: Bug

Postby Gene Engene » Wed Sep 15, 2021 5:06 pm

The one other usage that comes to mind is in the phrase 'to bug out', meaning to leave, usually quickly. It's also a part of what might be taken along on such a departure - a bug out bag. I heard it first in the military, early 60s, but subsequently by other groups concerned with survival issues.

David Myer
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Re: Bug

Postby David Myer » Thu Sep 16, 2021 8:05 pm

Gene, I wonder if this 'leaving quickly' usage is really just a shortening (and softening) of buggering off?

Love your use of remuda, Philip. Having lived all my life in cities, of course I had to look it up. What a sheltered life I have led.

And
There are a mort of names...
This 'mort' too is a new one on me. The context suggests 'a wide range' or 'multitude'. But I can find only references to death and dead bodies in its usage (apart from use as a proper name). Can you enlighten us?

Philip Hudson
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Re: Bug

Postby Philip Hudson » Thu Sep 16, 2021 11:31 pm

Collins Dictionary - mort - NOUN - a great deal; a great many.
This is an old Briticism. It is used in the novel "Precious Bane" by Mary Webb. We have discussed it before in this forum. I just like it as I like the not-very-well-known British novelist.

Bugger is a Briticism I do not like nor use. It is crude and unseemly.

In American English a booger is extruding snot from someone's nostrils. A little booger is a child who is either very naughty or isn't. It depends on the tone of voice and who said it. I once wrote an essay on snot that caused quire a stir among my readers. And, yes, Henry Kissinger was photographed eating a booger.

Back in Kissinger's day someone asked me if Kissinger was the end-of-time "Beast" described in the Bible. My reply was that he might aspire to be but he didn't have it in him. If you want my theological identification of the Biblical Beast it/he was definitely Nero. I am a serious theologian and I do not suffer fools gladly. Some people play fast and loose with the Bible. In Porgy and Bess, Sportin' Life, the dope dealer, sang, "The thing that you're liable to read in the Bible,
it ain't necessarily so." I say "The things that you're liable to say are in the Bible, ain't necessarily there." Or, as the old preacher was wont to say, "You gotta keep the text in context."
It is dark at night, but the Sun will come up and then we can see.

Gene Engene
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Re: Bug

Postby Gene Engene » Fri Sep 17, 2021 7:43 pm

David - I have heard, and read that expression, but it refers more to an unfortunate experience that someone wants, or wanted to avoid. One such was in a film, 'The World's Fastest Indian', about a New Zealand retiree who was trying to build an Indian motorcycle he could take to our Bonneville Salt Flats and make a try at a speed record. His name was Burt Munroe, played by Anthony Hopkins, and in the course of test riding his machine around the area, he was made fun of by the local youth for riding such an old machine, which prompted a challenge to race down on the beach at Invercargill, on the southern tip of the south Island. The race started, but Burt's machine was hard to start, and he was left far behind, but a push got him started, and he quickly caught up, and shot past them all. But the race course included a trash barrel, where they had to turn around, and return the the start line. However, Burt hadn't built the bike to turn, really, and in trying to do so he 'dumped' it, and couldn't get it going again. He reaction to the spill, and the resulting loss, was an emphatic 'buggah' - the meaning of which was pretty clear. It's a true story, and the adventures Burt has in getting to Utah make for very entertaining film. He does get to Bonneville, and does run, although not strictly by the rules, but that matters less than the fact that he did it. His character, as revealed by Hopkins, is largely responsible for that.


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