Re: To waffle, 'to waver, to vacillate, to equivocate, to dither'

On Thu, 25 Apr 2024 09:19:58 +0100, Aidan Kehoe <kehoea@parhasard.net>
wrote:

>
Ar an cúigiú lá is fiche de mí Aibreán, scríobh Steve Hayes:
>

Speaking (in sci.lang) of Andy Grove, he uses waffle in the above sense in
his good, well-edited ‘High Output Management.’ In my youth I would only
have used or understood the word in the meaning ‘to ramble on, to say
nothing of much consequence,’ and OED2 documents that the
fail-to-make-a-decision sense is colloquial or non-standard.

 
What is the "above" sense?

>
The one in the subject, ‘to waver, to vacillate, to equivocate, to dither.’

Ah, I didn't read it like that. I might have done so if the comma
after "waffle" had been replaced by a colon.

I presume I have misunderstood various Americans over the years in not
picking up on the ‘dither’ meaning. How universal is that meaning over
there?

 
For what values of "that"?

>
“Dither,” to fail to make a decision when making a decision would be
appropriate.

As in the driver of a car on a multilane highway being unable to
decide which lane they want to drive in, and holding up the following
traffic while they try to decide?





--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web:  http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk