Robert B0rk: A man of his word

The resignation of Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor has produced a flurry of stories about Robert Bork — the jurist whose Supreme candidacy was shot down in 1987 after critics argued he was too nuttily right-wing, would likely repeal Roe v. Wade, and didn’t think a right to privacy existed. My favorite recent article about Bork is short column in last week’s New York Times, in which Bork revealed that he really digs the fact that “borked” has become a figure of speech. As the Times reported:

… Mr. Bork said he had found some satisfaction in his defeat. He noted that “Borking” is now used as a verb meaning “to attack with unfair means,” he said. “To have your name become a verb is to achieve a certain form of immortality.”

Heh. The thing is, I’m not sure Bork is correct about what “borked” really means.

As far as I can tell, “borked” is more often used merely to say that something is totally broken and busted — partly because of the association with Bork’s flame-out, partly because “Bork” is a near anagram and homonym of “broke”, and, perhaps most of all because “bork” is an awesomely onomateopiac word. Indeed, there are several entries at The Urban Dictionary with variations on this theme, including:

1. borked

To have totally fucked something up. Usually by doing something stupid. Specifically used to describe technology that is broken.

Example 1….
Admin: I totally borked my machine installing Win XP SP2.

Example 2….

“I can’t come over at the moment…my car is borked”.

Of course, since “borked” is so frequently used to described busted technology, it’s even tranformed into a piece of alphanumeric l33tspeak — as in Boing Boing’s frequent use of “b0rked”.

Interestingly, back during Watergate, Bork’s name was used as a verb in an entirely different context. Bork was Solicitor General for Richard Nixon, and Nixon demanded that Bork fire Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox after Cox requested access to tapes of Oval Office conversations. The firing was known as the “Saturday Night Massacre”, and, as Wikipedia notes …

In the years after the Saturday Night Massacre, a well-known joke said that “borking” was “firing a man for doing exactly what he was hired to do” (i.e. Judge Bork had “borked” Archibald Cox, whose job had been to investigate criminal activities in the Nixon White House).


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I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.

Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!

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The “Milky Way Transit Authority” map

Should automobile software be open-sourced?

My Bookforum review of Jaron Lanier’s “You Are Not A Gadget”

Molecular secrets of the “iron-plated snail”

Garry Kasparov, cyborg

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a bunch of stuff

January 31, 2010 » 07:29 PM
V. A. To me death seems to be an evil.
M. What, to those who are al­ready dead? or to those who must die?
A. To both.
M. It is a mis­ery, then, be­cause an evil?
A. Cer­tain­ly.
M. Then those who have al­ready died, and those who have still got to die, are both mis­er­able?
A. So it ap­pears to me.
M. Then all are mis­er­able?
A. Ev­ery one.

January 24, 2010 » 03:22 PM

One of the more interesting trends is family, which came in at number five. Specifically, discussion about family, moms, dads, daughters, etc. jumped during 2009. With Facebook users getting older, this isn’t a big surprise. However, the fact that the mention of “kids” jumped by a factor of five this year is rather dramatic. It’s tough to know what this means, though. (via Facebook Unveils Most-Mentioned Topics of 2009

)

January 15, 2010 » 01:36 PM

BEYOND AWESOME. They are announcing a recall of the Plush Uterus “due to a potential choking hazard for children”. To apply for it, “Please send an email to the address below with the subject line, ‘UTERUS OPT OUT’”.

January 14, 2010 » 10:04 PM

“To order, please TYPE “YES” IN CHECKBOX BELOW TO AGREE YOU UNDERSTAND THIS PLUSH MUST BE KEPT AWAY FROM KIDS (it is a sex organ, after all). If it is not checked, WE WILL NOT SEND THE UTERUS.” (via @ibogost)

January 11, 2010 » 01:45 PM

I watched Space: 1999 back in the day, but I swear to god I do not remember this scene.

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