Word of the Day: and a good one at that!
Rube Goldberg • \ROOB-GOALD-berg\ • adjective
: accomplishing by complex means what seemingly could be done simply; also : characterized by such complex means
Example sentence:
"We had to devise equipment constantly and have it jerry-built with Rube Goldberg contraptions." (Ralph Morse, Air & Space Smithsonian, June/July 1989)
Reuben Lucius Goldberg was a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist who satirized the technology of modern times. He was best known for his cartoons of complicated, ramshackle contraptions that performed simple tasks in ludicrously complex ways. His cartoon character Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts, for example, invented an automatic stamp licker. The contraption involved a robot that would dump a can of ants onto upturned stamps and a starving anteater that would then lick up the ants, moistening the stamps. Long before Goldberg died in 1970, his name had become associated with unnecessarily complicated contraptions and procedures.
(interestingly, one of goldbergs characters was called "Lala Palooza"; perry ferrel must have been a fan...)
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