blooper

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English[edit]

WOTD – 10 January 2019

Etymology[edit]

A series of bloopers (sense 3) from the Dutch children’s television programme B.O.O.S. (1988–1995) presented by Bart de Graaff
The USS Niagara, a brig launched in 1813, under full sail on Lake Erie near Put-in-Bay, Ohio, USA. The leftmost sail next to the flag is the blooper or spanker (sense 4).
A radio direction finding truck used by the British Post Office in 1927 to find unlicensed radio transmitters and bloopers, or radio receivers causing interference (sense 5)

bloop +‎ -er, of US origin.[1]

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

blooper (plural bloopers)

  1. (informal) A blunder, an error.
    Synonyms: boo-boo, faux pas, fluff, gaffe, lapse, mistake, slip, stumble; see also Thesaurus:error
    • 1996 November, Richard Lederer, “Introduction”, in Fractured English: A Pleasury of Bloopers and Blunders, Fluffs and Flubs, and Gaffes and Goofs, 1st trade paperback edition, New York, N.Y.: Pocket Books, →ISBN, page xv:
      Why do my readers and informants so delight in bloopers and boo-boos, fluffs and flubs, and goofs and gaffes? […] The humor in bloopers lies, in part, in the listener's awareness of the speaker's vulnerability. It is the very artlessness of linguistic lapses that makes them so endearing and makes us feel superior.
    • 2000, Jeff Johnson, “Responsiveness Bloopers”, in Diane D. Cerra, editor, GUI Bloopers: Don’ts and Do’s for Software Developers and Web Designers, San Francisco, Calif.: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, →ISBN, page 368:
      This chapter describes the most common responsiveness bloopers and explains why developers commit them. It is organized differently from the other bloopers chapters of this book because responsiveness bloopers are all closely related to one another; they are all really variations on the same underlying blooper, with the same underlying reasons and solutions.
  2. (baseball, slang) A fly ball that is weakly hit just over the infielders. [19th c.]
    Synonyms: banjo hit, flare, Texas leaguer
    • 1949, Jimmy Powers, Baseball Personalities: The Most Colorful Figures of All Time, New York, N.Y.: R. Field, →OCLC, page 254:
      Again the blooper wafted up to the plate. Ted waited and waited and then let loose. The ball rose in a high trajectory and sailed deep into the bullpen for a homer. The fans roared. The slugger had killed the blooper.
    • 2003, Richard F. Peterson, The Pirates Reader, Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, →ISBN, page 139:
      The blooper, delivered with a shot-put motion, floated in an arc that reached twenty-five feet, then suddenly dropped across home plate in the strike zone.
  3. (film, informal) A filmed or videotaped outtake that has recorded an amusing accident and/or mistake.
    • 1921 December 31, “WLK”, in David J. Bodenhamer and Robert G[raham] Barrows, with the assistance of David G[ordon] Vanderstel, editors, The Encyclopedia of Indianapolis, Bloominton, Indianapolis, Ind.: Indiana University Press, published 1994, →ISBN, page 1399, column 2:
      WLK. First radio station. On December 31, 1921, local engineer Francis F. Hamilton's radio station, 9ZJ, signed on with an address from Mayor Samuel (Lew) Shank. Broadcasting from Hamilton's garage at 2011 North Alabama Street, Shank made the city's first radio blooper: "Hamilton, do you mean to tell me that people can actually hear me over that damn' dingus?"
    • 1963 August 24, “Some Goof: Success through Mistakes”, in Lee Zhito, editor, Billboard: The International Music-record Newsweekly, volume 75, number 34, Cincinnati, Oh.: The Billboard Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 7, columns 1 and 3:
      The 10th anniversary of the Kermit Schafer Blooper LP's on Jubilee will be marked by a brand-new blooper LP called "Washington Bloopers." Set is the 12th in the blooper series which started in 1953. […] Schafer's blooper packages have become so popular that he has formed a Blooper Snooper Club. Members of the club get prizes for blooper contributions, and it will soon have a monthly newsletter.
    • 2018 April 6, Fabrice Robinet, “Oh for the Days of the Making-Of Featurette — Seriously”, in The New York Times‎[1], →ISSN:
      With DVDs steadily joining VHS cassettes as extinct technology, what has become of the fun, insightful mixed bag that movie fans came to know as bonus features — the audio commentaries, behind-the-scenes featurettes, bloopers, deleted scenes and alternate endings?
  4. (nautical) A gaff-rigged fore-and-aft sail set from and aft of the aftmost mast of a square-rigged ship; a spanker.
    • 1976, Yacht Racing, volume 15, Chicago, Ill.: One-Design Yachtsman, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 30, column 3:
      Once the blooper is around the spinnaker, let out the blooper sheet completely (which collapses the blooper), race the blooper sheet forward and reset on the other side.
  5. (US, dated) A radio which interferes with other radios, causing them to bloop (squeal loudly). [from 1926]
    • 1925 March, Zeh Bouck, “A Great Two-tube Receiver: Complete Instructions for Building a Compact and Efficient Radio Receiving Set which Gives Wonderfully Satisfactory Results”, in Boys’ Life: The Magazine for All Boys, volume XV, number 3, [Irving, Tx.]: Boy Scouts of America, →OCLC, page 51, column 2:
      Upon close tickler coupling, the detector tube will oscillate, in which condition the tuning of DX will be faciliated. At such times the amount of energy radiated from the antenna is negligible, and does not interfere with reception or neighboring devices. This Roberts set is, therefore, not a "blooper."
  6. (US, military, slang) The Vietnam-era M79 grenade launcher (due to its distinctive report).

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

gaff-rigged fore-and-aft sail — see spanker

See also[edit]

  • (filmed or videotaped outtake): gag reel (“compilation of outtakes”)

References[edit]

  1. ^ “blooper”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

Spanish[edit]

Noun[edit]

blooper m (plural bloopers)

  1. blooper
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