mumblage /muhm'bl*j/ n.
The topic of one's mumbling (see mumble). "All that mumblage" is used like "all
that stuff" when it is not quite clear how the subject of
discussion works, or like "all that crap" when `mumble' is being
used as an implicit replacement for pejoratives.
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mumble interj.
1. Said when the correct response is too complicated to
enunciate, or the speaker has not thought it out. Often prefaces
a longer answer, or indicates a general reluctance to get into a
long discussion. "Don't you think that we could improve LISP
performance by using a hybrid reference-count transaction garbage
collector, if the cache is big enough and there are some extra
cache bits for the microcode to use?" "Well, mumble
... I'll have to think about it." 2. [MIT]
Expression of not-quite-articulated agreement, often used as an
informal vote of consensus in a meeting: "So, shall we dike out
the COBOL emulation?" "Mumble!" 3. Sometimes used as an
expression of disagreement (distinguished from sense 2 by tone of
voice and other cues). "I think we should buy a VAX." "Mumble!" Common variant: `mumble frotz'
(see frotz; interestingly, one does
not say `mumble frobnitz' even though `frotz' is short for
`frobnitz'). 4. Yet another metasyntactic variable, like
foo. 5. When used as a question
("Mumble?") means "I didn't understand you". 6. Sometimes used in
`public' contexts on-line as a placefiller for things one is
barred from giving details about. For example, a poster with
pre-released hardware in his machine might say "Yup, my machine
now has an extra 16M of memory, thanks to the card I'm testing
for Mumbleco." 7. A conversational wild card used to designate
something one doesn't want to bother spelling out, but which can
be glarked from context. Compare
blurgle. 8. [XEROX PARC] A
colloquialism used to suggest that further discussion would be
fruitless.
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munch vt.
[often confused with mung, q.v.] To
transform information in a serial fashion, often requiring large
amounts of computation. To trace down a data structure. Related
to crunch and nearly synonymous with
grovel, but connotes less pain.