|
Word of the Week
Archive
bogotify verb [T]
to change or
affect something so that it becomes useless or incorrect
The verb bogotify
originates in computer programming. A computer program that has
been changed so many times that it has become completely
disorganised, and is therefore useless, has become bogotified.
There's an everyday analogy with a nut and bolt: if you tighten a
nut too hard, you'll strip the threads on the bolt, so the bolt
has become bogotified and is no longer usable.
Background
The root of the verb
derives from the adjective bogus, used in computing terminology to
mean ‘useless or non-functional’, e.g. a
bogus program, or ‘incorrect’, e.g.
That algorithm is bogus. It
can also mean ‘unbelievable’, e.g. … you
claim to have solved the halting problem for Turing machines?
That’s totally bogus! Bogosity is a noun derivative,
meaning ‘the degree to which something is bogus’.
These senses of bogus originated at Princeton University in the
United States in the late sixties, spreading throughout the
computing community, and coming into general use in both America
and Britain by the mid-eighties. British prescriptivists have
continued to reject these newer senses, and many British English
dictionaries still largely focus on the ‘counterfeit’ or ‘not
genuine’ meaning of bogus, as in a bogus
insurance claim or a bogus £5
note. In fact, this sense of bogus also originated
in the US. It was first used in the eighteenth century, when it
was associated with a machine for making counterfeit money.
|