I learn something new every day. “Bodge” – here’s the definition from Wikitionary:
Etymology 1
The term “bodge” derives from Middle English boccen, which means “to mend.”
Verb
bodge (third-person singular simple present bodges, present participle bodging, simple past and past participle bodged)
- (UK) To do a clumsy or inelegant job, usually as a temporary repair.
-
- All the actions of his life are like so many things bodged in without any natural cadence or connexion at all. (A book of characters, selected from the writings of Overbury, Earle, and Butler, Thomas Overbury and John Earle, 1865)
- Some cars were neglected, others bodged to keep them running with inevitable consequences (Original Porsche 356: The Restorer’s Guide, Laurence Meredith, 2003)
- Do not be satisfied with a bodged job, set yourself professional goals and standards (The Restauration Handbook, Enric Roselló, 2007)
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Noun
bodge (plural bodges)
- (UK) A clumsy or inelegant job, usually a temporary repair.
Yeah, sounds about right. Here in the USA we have a website called “There I fixed it“, which could just as easily be named “There, I bodged it”.
Here’s what Steve McIntyre has to say about it:
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Muir Russell and the Briffa Bodge
By Steve McIntyre
There has been some recent discussion of the Briffa bodge – an early technique to hide the decline. I had drafted a post on the topic and its handling by the Muir Russell “inquiry” in early July 2010, but did not publish the post at the time. In today’s post, I’ve slightly updated my July 2010 draft.
The term “bodge” was used for the first time in a comment (not a post) on November 8, 2009 by me here less than two weeks before Climategate). I had noticed the term “Briffa bodge” in a preprint of Briffa and Melvin 2008 2011 (see here), where it was used to describe a “very artificial correction” to Briffa’s widely used Tornetrask chronology as follows:
Briffa et al. (1992) ‘corrected’ this apparent anomaly by fitting a line through the residuals of actual minus estimated ring widths, derived from a regression using the density data over the period 501–1750 as the predictor variable, and then removing the recent apparent decline in the density chronology by adding the fitted straight line values (with the sign reversed) to the chronology data for 1750–1980. This ‘correction’ has been termed the ‘Briffa bodge’ (Stahle, personal communication)!
Bodging of the Tornetrask chronology had been discussed in much earlier CA posts – e.g. in March 2005 here and again here.
The term “bodge” also occurs in Climategate correspondence, as pointed out by Jeff Id on December 1, 2009 here.
In July 1999, Vaganov et al (Nature 1999) had attempted to explain the divergence problem in terms of later snowfall (an explanation that would seem to require caution in respect to the interpretation of earlier periods.) On July 14, 1999, Ed Cook wrote Briffa as follows:
Hi Keith,
What is your take on the Vagonov et al. paper concerning the influence of snowfall and melt timing on tree growth in Siberia? Frankly, I can’t believe it was published as is. It is amazinglly thin on details. Isn’t Sob the same site as your Polar Urals site? If so, why is the Sob response window so radically shorter then the ones you identified in your Nature paper for both density and ring width? I notice that they used Berezovo instead of Salekhard, which is much closer according to the map. Is that
because daily data were only available for the Berezovo? Also, there is no evidence for a decline or loss of temperature response in your data in the post-1950s (I assume that you didn’t apply a bodge here). This fully contradicts their claims, although I do admit that such an effect might be happening in some places.
Cheers,
Ed
See here for the response.
I raised the Briffa bodge as an issue in my submission the Briffa bodge to the Parliamentary Committee and Muir Russell as an example of “data manipulation”.
Although Muir Russell expressed disinterest in opining on the proxy issues that dominated the Climategate dossier, they reluctantly expressed an opinion on Briffa’s adjustment of the Tornetrask chronology, agreeing that the bodge was indeed “ad hoc”, but found (without giving any evidence) that there was nothing “unusual about this type of procedure”. While I presume that this reassurance was intended to comfort his audience, I wonder whether readers should in fact be comforted by this observation.
read the full post here
So where all of a sudden did this “kludge” (rhymes with “fudge”) come from. I have never once in my life, ever heard anyone say that word.
On the other hand I do hear “kluge” (rhymes with “stooge”) all the time; and use it myself.
Is this the result of the lost generation of the 1960s taking over the education system in the United States of America.
Kludge ! My foot !
“”””” Francisco says:
April 1, 2011 at 6:10 am
@Katherine:
March 31, 2011 at 7:37 am
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The big Webster’s Unabridged I have in my hard drive (1963, I think) gives bodge as merely an alternative form of botch, and in the definition of botch it gives the current meaning of bodge as its first meaning. Both words clearly have the same origin and were used indistinctly for a long time, but not so much anymore it seems. “””””
Since when, did Webster’s dictionary become any kind of authority on the English Language.
Was it not Noah Webster who took it upon himself to rid America of all vestiges of English spellings and pronunciations; for example replacing (s) in recognise and similar words, with a (z); and leaving the (u) out of harbour and similar words ?
In America; “I’ll be with you momentarily.” means; “I will be with you soon.” In English, it means; “Iwill be with you FOR a moment.” (and then I’ll be gone.)
So I wouldn’t be citing Webster; unabridged or not, as a definitive source of the English Language.
Try the OED instead.
alliteration “Briffa Bodge” “wild and woolly” “thick as thieves” “pheasant plucker” “cash cow” “crack the code”
George E. Smith says:
April 1, 2011 at 1:25 pm
Since when, did Webster’s dictionary become any kind of authority on the English Language.
Was it not Noah Webster who took it upon himself to rid America of all vestiges of English spellings and pronunciations; for example replacing (s) in recognise and similar words, with a (z); and leaving the (u) out of harbour and similar words ?
In America; “I’ll be with you momentarily.” means; “I will be with you soon.” In English, it means; “Iwill be with you FOR a moment.” (and then I’ll be gone.)
So I wouldn’t be citing Webster; unabridged or not, as a definitive source of the English Language.
Try the OED instead.
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One thing I like about the English language is that it never had an entity that took it upon itself to be the “authority”, and nobody was ever bothered that there was no such authority. The approach of English language lexicographers to their language has always been more descriptive than prescriptive, unlike the French who have always been obsessed with having an authority that rules how things should be with language, and have a chronic dislike of alternatives.
In 1755, the great Samuel Johnson, all by himself with the help of a couple of amanuenses, managed to create the first comprehensive dictionary of the language. Granted he was a bit mischiveous at times. For example, he defined “oats” as: “a grain which in England is given to horses, but in Scotland feeds the people”. And he defined his own profession, lexicographer as “a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge”. Still, aside from a few oddities like those mentioned, his dictionary is lucid and very fine. Comparing it with the protracted effort by the Académie Francaise, composed of 40 members, to produce their dictionary, David Garrick wrote:
Talk war with a Briton, he’ll boldly advance
That one English soldier will beat ten of France
[…]
And Johnson well armed, like a hero of yore.
Has beat forty Frenchmen, and will beat forty more.”
Now to the OED and Webster. First, note that they don’t disagree that botch and bodge are the same word (or were up until very recently).
The 20-volume OED is great for historical research on words, for not practical at all for any other use, such as wanting to know what a word means today. You may have to read for 20 minutes before you get anywhere near the present on many words.
Webster’s Unabridged (that’s the very big book you used to see ontop of a stand in libraries in the US) is simply the best *one-volume* dictionary of the English language that exists. It’s a pity they haven’t re-edited since the 60s. Regarding spelling, it covers all the British spellings, as well as all dialectical usage in the different parts of Great Britain. Don’t despise it. Try it out. I no longer use the print edition since I bought it on disk when it was still available some 10 years ago. The print edition, if dropped from a height of ten feet on your head, will very likely kill you. I don’t think they sell it on disk anymore, you have to pay if you want to use it online.
Cheers
I believe that the word ‘kludge’ implies a clever, usually resource-limited, nonstandard solution for some emergent or temporary problem. Perhaps a ‘bodge’ is a dodgy kluge.
The best American/Canadian word for “bodge” is “patch” as in “I patched it” or “I covered the hole with a patch”.
Another British English verb with similar meaning is “fudge” as in “I fudged” it, which has the American/Canadian meaning, “I faked it”.
I think that if the word “fudge” had been used instead of “bodge” the whitewash might have been less widely accepted, at least in the UK.