Having learned the new word “glom” and having been invited to visit your wife’s “How Come” Web site, I saw she used the word “glom” twice. Once in the article “Why is soap so slippery?” and again in the article “What is the hot chocolate effect?”
Small world isn’t it?
Dan Schwartz:
March 14th, 2010 at 5:12 am
I’m not too surprised that the original questioner never encountered the word “glom”, as it seems to be used only in limited circumstances. I first heard the word when I worked for a time as a livery cab driver. To “glom” a trip had the very specific meaning of picking up a customer for a short trip and getting paid for it without reporting the trip to the dispatcher, thereby keeping the full fare, rather than just the percentage that you normally got. It was years before I heard the word in any context other than that, and I often wondered where it came from.
Vicky Ayers:
March 24th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Of course, there is “Flintheart Glomgold” the arch-rival of Donald Duck’s rich uncle, Scrooge McDuck. Never underestimate the educational power of comic books.
BILL HACKETT:
May 20th, 2010 at 9:41 pm
I GREW UP IN THE LATE FORTIES AND FIFTIES IN AN IRISH-AMERICAN FAMILY, LET ME TELL YOU THERE WAS LOT OF “GLOMMING” GOING ON AT OUR NINE PERSON DINNER TABLE.
[…] last longer when they are stable. Many of these aren’t really additives at all, instead they glom (with molecular attraction) onto unwanted particles and are removed from the finished wine. […]
Lee Donovan:
March 30th, 2016 at 4:56 pm
The animated Star Trek series used an interesting version of this word for a creature, genetically created, that grabbed and devoured Tribbles, called a “glommer.”
oscar:
March 11th, 2017 at 8:13 pm
I grew up in Phoenix and never heard the word ‘glom’ until high school, in the fifties. It seemed to be a regional thing, perhaps coming out of Chicago or maybe Missouri. The term was not limited in use at all, to the users around me it meant to grab on to something, anything, advantageously for your own use.
Joe Bartlett:
November 5th, 2017 at 1:12 am
Glom may not have originated this way but beginning I the 1980s I found it in common usage among rock climbers (at least in California) to describe grabbing onto rocks as in “he was able to glom on to that small bump on the right.”
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Frank Townend:
September 1st, 2009 at 12:58 pm
“It never rains, it pours”
Having learned the new word “glom” and having been invited to visit your wife’s “How Come” Web site, I saw she used the word “glom” twice. Once in the article “Why is soap so slippery?” and again in the article “What is the hot chocolate effect?”
Small world isn’t it?
Dan Schwartz:
March 14th, 2010 at 5:12 am
I’m not too surprised that the original questioner never encountered the word “glom”, as it seems to be used only in limited circumstances. I first heard the word when I worked for a time as a livery cab driver. To “glom” a trip had the very specific meaning of picking up a customer for a short trip and getting paid for it without reporting the trip to the dispatcher, thereby keeping the full fare, rather than just the percentage that you normally got. It was years before I heard the word in any context other than that, and I often wondered where it came from.
Vicky Ayers:
March 24th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Of course, there is “Flintheart Glomgold” the arch-rival of Donald Duck’s rich uncle, Scrooge McDuck. Never underestimate the educational power of comic books.
BILL HACKETT:
May 20th, 2010 at 9:41 pm
I GREW UP IN THE LATE FORTIES AND FIFTIES IN AN IRISH-AMERICAN FAMILY, LET ME TELL YOU THERE WAS LOT OF “GLOMMING” GOING ON AT OUR NINE PERSON DINNER TABLE.
Wine Additives: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly | Wine Folly:
November 8th, 2012 at 5:52 pm
[…] last longer when they are stable. Many of these aren’t really additives at all, instead they glom (with molecular attraction) onto unwanted particles and are removed from the finished wine. […]
Lee Donovan:
March 30th, 2016 at 4:56 pm
The animated Star Trek series used an interesting version of this word for a creature, genetically created, that grabbed and devoured Tribbles, called a “glommer.”
oscar:
March 11th, 2017 at 8:13 pm
I grew up in Phoenix and never heard the word ‘glom’ until high school, in the fifties. It seemed to be a regional thing, perhaps coming out of Chicago or maybe Missouri. The term was not limited in use at all, to the users around me it meant to grab on to something, anything, advantageously for your own use.
Joe Bartlett:
November 5th, 2017 at 1:12 am
Glom may not have originated this way but beginning I the 1980s I found it in common usage among rock climbers (at least in California) to describe grabbing onto rocks as in “he was able to glom on to that small bump on the right.”