"That's a great deal to make one word mean," Alice said in a thoughtful tone. "When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra."

Tuesday, 23 June 2009

Quibble

 
I was asked to define quibble for my readers.

To quibble is to argue over petty things; to make trivial or minor complaints, objections or arguments; to complain or argue in a trivial or petty manner.

"I won't quibble about the cost of the phone if you'll only stop making those International calls. "

What I didn't know when I was asked was that there was an adjective derived from quibble - quibbly. Quibbly means fussy, involving quibbles; petty or trifling. What a great word - "Look darling, it's only a dress; stop being so quibbly about whether your bum looks big or not."

The following is another (to me, totally incomprehensible,) definition. A quibble is the quantum computing term for the aggregation of four qubits, or half a qubyte. This follows the standard computing nomenclature of bit, nibble and byte.
 

1 comment:

  1. I've challenge myself to use your as many of your weeks words in conversation or blog post...its remembering to do it...once l'm away from the pc..

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