Nibble (pronounced nib-uhl)
(1) To bite off small bits of something; to eat food by
biting off small pieces.
(2) To bite, eat, or chew gently and in small amounts (often
in the form “nibbled at”); to take dainty or tentative (especially when unsure
of the taste) bites; an act or instance of nibbling.
(3) A small morsel of food.
(4) Snack food (allways (sweet or savory) in the plural
as “nibbles” and usually served with drinks).
(5) In fishing, a response by a fish to the bait on a line
(technically, the feeling of the fish tasting the bait but not yet “hooked”).
(6) In many contexts, a preliminary positive response or
reaction such as an “expression of interest” to a proposal.
(7) Of an idea or
suggestion, tentatively or cautiously to consider.
(8) In moments of intimacy, sexually to stimulate a
partner by the (gentle) use of the teeth on body parts (usually extremities) such
as toes, finger tips, nipples or ear lobes, a subset of fetishists using this caressing
as a prelude to acts such as biting, scratching or spanking.
(9) In computing, a unit of memory equal to half a byte,
or four bits.
1425–1475: From the late Middle English nebillen (to peck away at, to sample, to
take small bites) and thought related to the Middle Low German nibbelen (to gnaw; to pick with the beak),
thus the presumption by most etymologists the word is probably of Dutch or Low
German origin and akin to the modern Low German nibbeln (to gnaw), the Middle Dutch knibbelen (to gnaw) (and the source of the Dutch knibbelen (to cavail, squabble)) the Dutch
nibbelen (to nibble) and the Saterland Frisian nibje (to nibble). The
noun (an act of nibbling) developed from the verb and appeared in the 1650s,
extended in the mid nineteenth century to describe plates of "small bites
or morsels. The verb nosh came into use
in New York in 1957 in the sense of “to snack between meals and was from the Yiddish
nashn (nibble), from the Middle High
German naschen, from the Old High
German hnascon & nascon (to nibble), from the Proto-Germanic
naskon & gnaskon. The forms noshed
& noshing soon emerged in casual use although “the nosh” had been used in
the US military as a noun since 1917, meaning “a mess or canteen”; it was a clipping
of “nosh-house” which in civilian slang described restaurants & cafés. Nibble is a noun & verb, nibbled is a
verb & adjective, nibbler is a noun, nibbling is a noun & verb and nibbleable
& nibbly & nibblish are adjectives (although not all dictionaries list
them as standard forms); the noun plural is nibbles.
Nibbles could also be described as tidbits (often wrongly
used as titbits), bites, tastes, or crumbs.
In idiomatic use, “to get a nibble” is (analogous with a fish tentatively
tasting the bait before swallowing the hook) to receive a response to an offer,
suggestion, idea, advertisement etc. “To
nibble away at” describes processes similar to those illustrated by phrases
such as “straw which broke the camel’s back” or “death of a thousand cuts”. Rust for example “nibbles away” at metal and
inflation “nibbles away” at savings and the value of money (unlike
hyperinflation which, depending on the its extent, is better described as a
process of erosion, decimation, destruction etc). As a verb to nibble is also to find petty
faults or make needlessly pedantic points.
Lindsay Lohan nibbling on a slice of watermelon.
In computing, a nibble was a unit of memory equal to half
a byte, or four bits, it’s origin apparently in the late 1950s among the IBM engineers
developing the mainframe architecture for the System 360 (the S/360, 1964), the
fundamentals of which remain in use even now.
Engineers do have a sense of humor and “nibble” was chosen to represent
half a byte, based on the homophony of byte and bite although more serious types (and there were a lot of them about at IBM) preferred half-byte or tetrade (“a group
of four things”, from the Ancient Greek τετράς (tetrás)) and by the time the concept ended up in the hands of
networking and communications engineers, it could also be a semi-octet, quartet
or quadbit. More linguistically adventurous
types coined nybble as an alternative spelling (a tribute to the spelling of
byte) and this encouraged others who developed a protocol for the exchange executed
with four-bit packets which they labeled nabble, a nod to “babble”. The word babble, despite the common belief, is
unrelated to the Latin Babel, from
Biblical Hebrew בָּבֶל (bāḇel) (Babylon) and was from the Middle English babelen, from the Old English bæblian (which existed also as wæflian (foolishly to talk), from the Proto-West
Germanic bablōn & wablōn, variants of babalōn, from the Proto-Germanic babalōną (to chatter), from a variety of primitive Indo-European sources
which were various ways of expressing the idea of vague speech or mumbling, all of which etymologist suspect were onomatopoeic
mimicking of the infantile sounds of babies, something forms appear in just
about every known European language.
Lindsay Lohan at a table of nibbles.
In the early days of computing when memory of all types
was expensive (and sometimes actually rare), nibbles were helpful because
four-bit architecture was an economical way to implement processes and many of
the early microprocessors, of which the Intel 4004 (1971) is probably the best
remembered because it was the core of so many pocket calculators and despite
the enormous advances during the last half-century, 4-bit microcontrollers
remain in use, simply because something like a basic washing machine demands
nothing more. The programmers of the
early mainframes were demanding more but the hardware to handle that didn’t
then exist and the nibble was the optimal way to ensure the most characters
could be contained in a given number of bytes, making computations faster and
debugging easier although, in a classic work-around, some “nibbles” did grow to
8 bits, the trick invoked to add functionality while maintaining backward computability
but the increasing muscularity of hardware soon rendered the approach obsolete.
Crooked Hillary Clinton, nibbling.
The noun nibbler means (1) someone who nibbles, (2) a tool
for cutting sheet metal and (3) a fish of the sea chub subfamily Girellinae and
(4) a technique for duplicating copying protected floppy diskettes. Copy-protected diskettes were common in the
1980s and were an attempt by software developers to prevent privacy. When programs were distributed in a multi-diskette
pack, it was common practice to have copy protection applied to only one, this
being the one required to undertake an installation or make the software
operative; it was essentially the same idea as “product activation” in the internet
age. As an additional layer, some
manufacturers would include a counter on an installation diskette which would
permit the product to be installed only a set number of times. The idea behind the name was that the hacks “nibbled
away” at the security layer(s) and examples included CopyIIPC & CopyIIAT
(for low & double (160-180-320-360-720 kB) & high (1.2-1.44 MB) density
diskettes respectively and Fast Hack 'Em. It was something of a power race because
within hours of Microsoft introducing a proprietary 1.7 MB format in an attempt
to defeat the pirates, hacks & cracks appeared on the bulletin boards.
Joe Biden "nibbling" and a fish nibbling on the dead skin cells of feet.
In July 2023, Joe Biden (b 1942; US president since 2021)
was observed at a public event “nibbling” on the jumpsuit of an infant girl
being held in her moth’s arms. Fox News,
on the spot to record the nibble, claimed the unfortunate child was “scared” and
while that may or may not be true, she certainly seemed not best pleased. Fox News though were right that it was definitely
a nibble and nibblin’ Joe used exactly the same action as the small (and
presumably grateful) fish which live out their lives feasting on the dead skin cells
of the feet of folk who pay a small sum to sit for a while and be nibbled. For fish and us, it's a win-win situation.
Joe Biden and his wife Dr Jill Biden (b 1951) at a campaign stop, Council Bluffs, Iowa, 30 November, 2019.
Nibblin’ Joe had of course been seen before, photos of him enjoying his wife’s fingers circulating in December 2019 at the start of his No Malarkey bus tour laying out the groundwork for his campaign in the Democratic Party’s Iowa presidential caucuses the following February. Whether the sight of him nibbling her fingers was responsible for his poor showing in the caucuses isn’t known but despite Pete Buttigieg (b 1982) gaining twice his support in Iowa, the nomination for 2020 was ultimately secured by Mr Biden (with the odd nudge from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) which had decided they’d prefer to contest an election with someone who possibly was senile than with anyone who definitely was gay).
He was of course well known for being sniffin’ Joe, photographs of him leaning in, apparently to “sniff” the hair of women and girls (some young enough to be his great-granddaughters) circulating widely in the run-up to the 2020 election. It was all very strange because it was such unusual behavior. Had photographs appeared of a man of his age doing such things behind closed doors, it would have been a textbook case of public moral outrage but do so in public, knowing press and television cameras were focused on him and that sometimes the parents of the children were present, suggested a naïve innocence rather than anything distasteful. Still, it was strange enough for the party hierarchy to discuss the matter with him and in a public statement, he acknowledged “things have changed” over the years and such tactility was no longer acceptable. “I get it” he said. Given the obvious discomfort displayed by some of the women sniffed, one might have thought he should have “got it” sooner.
Joe Biden and crooked Hillary Clinton, Scranton Airport, Pennsylvania, July 2016.
He’s also huggin’ Joe.
In July 2016, the greatest interest crooked Hillary Clinton (then in
peak pantsuit mode) had in Joe Biden was thinking of some way he could be persuaded
to serve as her secretary of state (foreign minister) once she’d enjoyed her
landslide victory over Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021). That may have accounted for the warmth of the
welcome she offered when she waited at the bottom of the stairs to meet him at Scranton
airport, Pennsylvania. However, perhaps
overcome with emotion (Scranton his childhood home), the hug she offered
lingered longer than she would have liked, huggin’ Joe hanging on for some fifty
seconds despite her twice “tapping out” (a double tap on the arm, the accepted
non-verbal code to indicate a release is requested) and even trying to wriggle
free from his grasp didn’t work.
Should the 2024 US presidential contest descend again to Biden
vs Trump (something a majority of Americans seem resigned to rather than enthusiastic
about), Mr Trump will again have to decide which moniker best suits his
opponent. In 2020 he used “sleepy Joe”,
the unsubtle message denoting someone in advanced cognitive decline who was apt
to need frequently to nap. At the time,
there were memes around the hair sniffing photographs using “creepy Joe” and it may have been tempting but Mr Trump’s own documented history of ungentlemanly
conduct with women may have led his advisors to suggest he avoid casting that
stone. On that basis, “sniffin’ Joe”, “huggin’
Joe” and “nibblin Joe” are probably out too so it’s either stick with “sleepy
Joe” or think of something new. Whatever
his flaws, Mr Trump has a good record of avoiding issues with narcotics and
alcohol so the well publicized problems of Hunter Biden (b 1970) might offer
some possibilities given the recent discovery of cocaine in the White House
although there’s said to be no evidence linking the substance with any member
of the Biden family. In the run-up to
the 2020 election he’d used “Basement Biden”, “Beijing Biden” & “Slow Joe” but none really captured the imagination in the way of “crooked
Hillary”, “low energy Jeb”, “little Marco”, “mini Mike”, “Lying Ted” or “Fauxcahontas”
(although the last one was coined by someone else and Mr Trump usually
preferred “Pocahontas”). He does of
course have other matters to think about but the task will have been allocated
to staff and it’ll be interesting to see if they conjure up anything fun.
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