Talk:slop

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• Time: 2005-06-01T02:56:23Z - By: w:User:70.242.45.228
• Time: 2005-06-01T05:53:05Z - By: w:User:Pamri - Comment: {{Move to Wiktionary}}— This unsigned comment was added by McBot (talk • contribs) at 21:49, 2 June 2005.

McBot, Please tell your owner to train you to sign. Bogorm 10:49, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Hacker's Dictionary has an entry for 'slop' ...

Please consider it when extending this article. — This unsigned comment was added by 80.190.243.144 (talk) at 22:44, 16 June 2006.

policeman

In my Penguin The Modern English Dictionary from 1987 there is the meaning "policeman", tagged as slang. However, I did not encounter it in Webster's dictionary from 1913 or in the modern Merriam Webster Online dictionary? What on earth does that mean - that the word emerged after 1913, was in use in 1987 and suddenly in 2008 it is introuvable, why so? Could any native speaker of English respond whether the word is in use today in Britain or in USA and if the user was adult enough in 1987, whether it was then in use? Bogorm 10:41, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Additional Meaning: Imprecision

I understand 'slop' to mean an imprecise construction, similar to play:noun:11 "The extent to which a part of a mechanism can move freely", and related to sloppy:3 "Imprecise or loose". Eg, "These gears have too much slop". I don't have any sources to back this up, except that the online Merriam-Webster includes intransitive verb: "to pass beyond or exceed a boundary or limit".

Missing uncountable noun sense in typesetting?

Perhaps something like text that doesn't fit on the line or the page. Green's Newspeak (1984) mentions a similar sense, conceivably based on this same source (since it's from 1984 itself):

• 1984, USENIX Association. Conference, Proceedings (volume 2, page 264)

  The left over "slop" is carried onto the next horizontal move. The "slop" is reset at the beginning of each line. What matters, of course, is the leftover slop at the end of a line.

Equinox ◑ 06:34, 25 January 2021 (UTC)