blooper

A blunder, an error.

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.

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.

A fly ball that is weakly hit just over the infielders.

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.

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.

A filmed or videotaped outtake that has recorded an amusing accident or mistake.

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?"

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.

A gaff-rigged fore-and-aft sail set from and aft of the aftmost mast of a square-rigged ship; a spanker.

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.

A radio which interferes with other radios, causing them to bloop (squeal loudly).

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."