Pogo Stick

A pogo stick is a device for jumping off the ground in a standing position, through the aid of a spring.

They can be used as a toy, exercise equipment, or extreme sports instrument. It has had peaks and valleys in its popularity. It was very popular in the late 1960s and 70s, and is enjoying some renewed popularity now in extreme sports via the new sport of extreme pogo or "Xpogo".

It consists of a pole with a handle at the top and footrests near the bottom, and a spring located somewhere along the pole. The spring joins two sections of the pole, which extends below the footpads. It can be steered by shifting one's weight off the centerline of the spring in the desired horizontal direction thus producing horizontal locomotion.

A pogo stick that was not called a pogo stick was patented in 1891 by George H. Herrington of Wichita, Kansas "for leaping great distances and heights". This was an antecedent of the pogo stick as well as today's spring stilts.

We can call the pogo stick an eponym because the modern pogo stick name supposedly comes from a redesigned version that looks like the one we know by Hans Pohlig and Ernst Gottschall whose combined names give us "PoGo." They applied for a German patent in 1920 and described their device as a "spring end hopping stilt."

Glitch

Right off, I have to say that although the term "glitch" is in common use, the origins and etymology of  it are unclear.

It has come to mean "a short-lived fault in a system." It is often used to describe a transient fault that corrects itself, and is therefore difficult to troubleshoot. The term is particularly common in the computing and electronics industries, and among players of video games.

It seems to first come into use in the late-1950s within the military and space program, but it didn't appear in the media until the early-1960s in the context of unforeseen technical errors in space travel. Astronaut John Glenn used the word in his 1962 book, Into Orbit: "Another term we adopted to describe some of our problems was 'glitch'. Literally, a glitch ... is such a minute change in voltage that no fuse could protect against it."


Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang says the term comes from the German word glitschen ("to slip") and the Yiddish word gletshn ("to slide or skid").

In 1965, Time Magazine felt the need to define it when using it in an article: "Glitches—a spaceman's word for irritating disturbances."

Glitch was used to describe a computer bug that many feared would cause an apocalyptic crisis named Y2K. The term fit in that the bang turned out to be a whimper.

On the other hand, it was also used to describe issues with the launch of the HealthCare.gov website. In that case, it is misused considering the issues were much more than just a "short-lived fault in a system that corrects itself."

Contronyms

I first came across the term contronym when I was teaching middle school English. They are words that are their own antonyms. In other words, they mean something and they mean the opposite. That can be confusing.

Take this sentence:  "The company's oversight had become a costly issue."  Did the company overlook a problem or was it that their conscientious overseeing of something was costing someone problems?

Usually, we can tell which meaning from the context.  "The carcass was cleaved" uses it to mean "to plit or sever" (as with a cleaver).  "He cleaves to his beliefs" means not a split but that he clings or adheres to them. Both meanings come from Old English, but from different, though similar words.  Cleave as to adhere comes from clifian. Cleave as in to split comes from clēofan. That word takes forms that apply to that meaning still, like "cloven," as in a type of split hoof and "cleft" as in cleft palate.

Some other contronyms:

Sanction = to give official permission or approval OR to impose a penalty on.

Left = remaining (What's left to eat?) OR departed (Everyone left the room.)

Dust = the noun is that annoying coating on furniture, but the verb is to remove that coating. Similarly, we use "seed." Seeding the lawn adds seeds but seeding a pepper is removing them.

Trim as a verb can mean adding or taking away. If you trim the Christmas tree, you add decorations. But if you trim a tree in the backyard, you are more likely to be cutting away at it.

Fast can mean "moving rapidly" (driving fast) or "fixed, unmoving" (holding fast or colors that are fast and so will not run).

Screen can mean ‘to show’ (a movie) or ‘to hide’ (an unsightly view).

Clip can mean "to bind together" (clip some papers) or "to separate" (as in clippers or clipping coupons from a newspaper).