‘A bodged object might not look quite the way it would if it had been professionally repaired.’

Improvising a repair? Rhiannon Grant has a word

Here’s a word I remembered recently: bodge.

Bodging can be a problem, an approach, or a skill. The English word ‘to bodge’ has, as far as I’m aware, three uses. It can be used as: a short form of chair-bodgering (the skill of making chair legs and other items from green wood); to indicate a repair which has been done badly (as in ‘a bodged job’); and to suggest something in between, something that uses the skill of improvisation to create a functional, but often inelegant, solution.

This latter meaning is not, I think, just a skill. It is an approach that uses whatever one needs to do a job from scratch. To bodge together a repair in a piece of clothing, you need a basic level of sewing skills; to bodge a piece of electrical kit to that inelegant-but-functional state that is characteristic of a good bodge, you need to understand the principles of electrical work. (Please note that, although I will admit to bodging myself, I’m not recommending you try this at home!) To these basic skills bodging adds an appreciation of the need to keep things going, rather than simply buying new or beginning again. It also requires a few relevant tools (if not the ideal thing) and some relevant materials (again, if not the ideal thing).

Some jobs are improvisational by nature. Improv theatre, obviously. And most things that require contact with the public need a level of flexibility – a willingness to assess what is happening and respond in the moment. Teaching (especially teaching as a visitor in a space you may never have visited before and with people you have never previously met) has a lot of this. These things might be good training for bodging, but I don’t think they’re bodging as such. Bodging is more tangible. You end up with an object.

A bodged object might not look quite the way it would if it had been professionally repaired. For example, the cuddly toy with a glued-on felt eye to replace a broken plastic one. Or the skirt whose hem I turned up so I no longer trip over it, but didn’t get quite neat, so it can’t be ironed to flat. (I tackle this situation with a bodger’s solution: don’t iron it.) If you buy a cushion cover these days it usually has a zip so the cushion can be removed for cleaning. When I took a bit of embroidery we found in my grandmother’s house and made it into a cushion cover with a bit of fabric I happened to have in my drawer, I didn’t have a zip. So I just sewed the cushion in. I did have to buy a cheap cushion pad, and if I need to wash it I’ll unpick it and stitch it up again afterwards.

There are some tasks I think about bodging, but I come up short because although the thing is theoretically bodgable (or bodgible, or maybe bodgeable – eh, that spelling might not be elegant but it’s functional) I either lack the relevant skills or the collection of no-things by which it is possible to make something from nothing. Cushions, yes. Computers, no – although I know people who can.

What do you bodge? Is it even part of your vocabulary?

This article first appeared on her blog: https://brigidfoxandbuddha.wordpress.com/

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Comments

Oh yes, bodging is satisfying, as well as helping save the world, and maybe more?
Visiting my home for the first time in 2009 a kind person offered to take away my 1975 Kenwood Chef mixer to fix the broken (and obsolete) switch.
It was returned, nicely bodged with an external switch like a bedside lamp.
Mixer and its attachments all still working.
£300 or so saved.
Nothing landfilled.
And yes, reader, I married the bodger. 
And he asks me to add that he’s still bodging.

By helengamsa on 3rd March 2020 - 18:24

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