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Today's Word "Gremlin"

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Published in Vocabulary

gremlin \GREM-lin\ (noun) - A mischievous sprite imagined to cause the inexplicable problems in the real and virtual machinery of technology.

"I received your e-mail alright but the attachment was snatched by the gremlins of cyberspace."

 

Although today's word first emerged during World War II, evidence suggests a predecessor was in circulation among the RAF a bit earlier. In the 1920s it was used to refer to anyone saddled with a menial task but that sense never quite caught on. Charles Graves wrote in 'The Thin Blue Line' (1941) that the word referred to goblins that clambered out of Fremlin beer bottles, a popular beer among RAF pilots in India and the Middle East before World War II. Get it? Goblin + Fremlin = gremlin. No one has proposed a more convincing or authoritative explanation.


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