Did you bother to look up "bleeding edge" before you constructed this disquisition?

Actually, yes, and I found that the bleeding edge is in front of the cutting edge., among other idiocies.

It seemed to me that that article contained two distinct derivations for the term: one, the nonsensical one that's supposed to be conceptually linked to "cutting edge," but the second--the bleeding edge is where you suffer for innovation--merely terminologically linked.

Even in the latter case, though, what's the connection between bleeding and edges that makes bleeding edge sensical? It's like, wow, so innovative, that you're on the edge, and that edge is bleeding, except, uh, wait, this makes no sense.

OH WAIT: maybe this can be salvaged if we take "bleeding edge" to mean "the edge that bleeds you". Of course then we'd be in the realm of outdated medicine, and things still don't really work.

In short, I don't think we can easily separate the merely terminological from the conceptual linkages. For one thing, the article states that it's specifically innovation and things that are so new, etc, that get the application of the term, not just anything that's unstable yet potentially useful. Even in the reduced technical sense adduced in the first part of the article, in fact, it's explicitly modelled on leading edge both terminologically and conceptually.

(Next: ogged asks me if the post about druthers was serious.)

Think about standing at the edge of a precipice: better view, also the possibility of falling off and being hurt.

Ogged, I understand perfectly well that newer stuff can be riskier than older, more-tested stuff. That doesn't mean that bleeding edge makes sense, and your attempt to divorce bleeding edge from cutting edge bespeaks an truly sublimely fine mind. (Cutting edge makes as much or more sense in this context: it's so far forward, man, it's the cutting edge—meaning, it'll cut you if you're not careful.)

I would argue that the very premise of the post is at fault. Picture a razor edge cutting, reasonably slowly, through flesh. Once the initial incision is made, a bead of blood wells out ahead of the foremost portion of the blade -- the first thing that affects the flesh is not the blade itself, but the blood flowing forward from the cut. The bleeding edge is a coherently describable location, perceptibly in advance of the actual cutting edge.

Yes, an truly. The only way to capture your mind in its full particularity was to use an inappropriately long version of the article.

LizardBreath would have the edge be a location not actually located on the edge, a clearer case of incoherence than which none could desire, and ignores that while blood may flow forward (that she uses this term shows that she has a different picture of how this cutting is occurring) from a cut, the blood itself cannot precede the cut whence it flows.

Ben, I realize that the word "edge" is used in both metaphors, but the tricky thing about words is that they don't always mean the same thing. In one metaphor, "edge" refers to the sharp side of a cutting implement, and in the other, to one's location relative to safe/undiscovered territory.

If we take the "edge" part of "bleeding edge" seriously, we must consider the position to be part of the imaged knife

Why? Knives aren't the only things that have edges.

the tricky thing about words is that they don't always mean the same thing

Who are you, Ernst Junger?

one's location relative to safe/undiscovered territory.

I didn't know that locations bled.

Should be Jünger.

Pinky:   Are we going to push it to the edge of the envelope?

Brain:   No, Pinky. We may, however, reach the sticky part.

Ogged is just being pissy because of the first sentence of the post.

Ogged is declaring victory and going back to the music thread.

13 -- Kansas.

Declaring victory before retreating—an odd strategy.

The edge of that which is cut bleeds, i.e., the flesh. Why would not the bleeding edge be the thing that is cut, which is necessarily ahead of that which is cutting?

Ben, you are dancing on the edge of being liquidated.

Also: how do people draw distinctions between new words/terms that are obnoxious jargon versus those that the language really needed? I hate "bleeding edge" in business documents because it has such frat-boy, more-macho-than-thou associations. But my eye skimmed right over it in Ogged's post. I guess I just assumed it was innocuous hyperbole in service to a larger point.

Whoops, missed a transitional thought there. Before "I hate", read: "Or is it contextual?"

I have never actually seen "bleeding edge" until just now. I ought to get ahold of some powerpoint decks.

how do people draw distinctions between new words/terms that are obnoxious jargon versus those that the language really needed?

Personally, I don't.

You say that now, teo, but that only means that you haven't been exposed to enough obnoxious jargon.

24: Seriously? I can't read you.

I'm asking because it really does make a big difference in my own writing. If I come across a new term that I think makes a point well, or vividly, I poach it immediately. If I come across a term that I think is pretentious or labored or otherwise tedious, I avoid it (and edit it out of other people's writing, when I can).

Seriously.

Teo, as a linguist, is obliged not to have any aesthetic evaluations of language.

You're doing it right, Witt. A perfectly cromulent position.

Ben, as a little bitch, is obliged to view language exclusively from an aesthetic perspective.

oh you two should just make-out already.

Ben...is obliged to view [everything] exclusively from an aesthetic perspective.

32 was me.

how do people draw distinctions between new words/terms that are obnoxious jargon versus those that the language really needed?

Partly this depends on your audience, and partly it's a matter of whether you can say the same thing more plainly, right? (And you almost always can.)

31: I knew there was a reason I should have gone to UnfoggeDCon.

If you had gone, your supreme obligation would have been to cockblock Ben, not snogflog* him.

*Really needed by language

But what if I cockblocked him by snogflogging him, thus preventing him from activitizing* any other desires?

*obnoxious jargon

Don't taunt me; I'm too busy admiring the scansion. Or is that rhyme? Neither...?

"Activitizing" would mean "make into an activity", as in, "can you think of some way to activitize these blocks? I can't figure out what to do with them." You want "actualize".

OK, Teo, that made me laugh. Clearly you have read enough business reports.

I am well aware of what "activitize" would mean. The problem with "actualize" is that people already use it.

Looking at the OED, the original meaning of "bleeding edge" was printer's (specifically mapmaker's) jargon. One meaning of "bleed" is to print outside the margins up to the edge of the page. Thus, using a "bleeding edge" was a part of the map/chart/etc. that extended farther. (Citation 1966.)

Then, as a twist on "leading/cutting edge," it was appropriated for the current meaning. (Citation 1983.)

It may be used to mean something more advanced than cutting-edge only because it started as a newer and more playful term, unrelated to any 600-word ruminations on what part of the knife bleeds.

"It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering." -- J.G.Bennett

Actually, the whole of that Fripp album (third in a series) seems pertinent.

(opps, slash key wasn't workin)

this post completes Ben's coronation as our generation's Andy Rooney, right?

45 was me.

What none of you are prepared to deal with is how this all relates to the opening sequence of Un Chien Andalou (Luis Buñuel, 1929) where Buñuel wields a razor to cut open an eye (through the miracle of montage this appears to be a young woman's eye, but it's really a dead cow's eye). Watching this sequence, we can see that a razor drawn across tissue actually creates more than one bleeding edge -- the edges at either side of the razor. Additionally, there is what we might describe as the "bleeding point", the area just in advance of the razor which is about to be split, but which, as described above, is already "bleeding" in that blood (or, in this case, vitreous humor) is welling up over it. Thus the phrase "bleeding edge" necessarily implies motion, since if the action of cutting were suspended, there would merely be the cut (but not necessarily montage) which would have an end point, but not a bleeding edge. Of course, the term privileges frontality in that it ignores the actual action of three-dimensional objects cutting through tissue, which sever blood vessels to the depth of the cutting tool, and not only on the immediately visible surface.

Isn't it pleasant to note that English does not have a verb specific to the welling-up of vitreous humor after an eyeball has been damaged?

Minivet cheated. This was not an open-book test, it was a pulling-from-the-butt contest.

Obviously "bleeding edge" has something to do with menstruation, but everyone is too PC to say that.

Shorter 47: Slicin' up eyeballs, I want you to know.

I met both the cutting the bleeding edges today in the kitchen, while preparing breakfast tacos.

48: I could tell, with all the Wikipeding.

The "bleeding edge" is clearly derived from the old Cockney expression, as in:

"'Avin' the family rahnd at Christmas didn't 'arf put me on bleedin' edge."

It is thus obviously more advanced than the cutting edge, as it is only a step removed from the final stage of gibbering insanity.

Condolences, Ben, academia has ruined my writing as well.

Ogged gets it right in 3. I couldn't bear to read past there.

45: our generation

Well, someone's generation I suppose...

51 -- wouldn't the relevant holiday be T'anksgivin'?

Isn't it pleasant to note that English does not have a verb specific to the welling-up of vitreous humor after an eyeball has been damaged?

No! It would be a useful word for reviewers!

About half an hour into this pretentious, over-lit, self-conscious movie, the physical pain it caused me had reached such a point that I could almost feel my eyes starting to *NON-EXISTENT BUT DEFINITELY NECESSARY WORD HERE*

wouldn't the relevant holiday be T'anksgivin'?

"Fanksgivin'", not "T'anksgivin'", I think. "T'anksgivin'" would be a festival celebrated by the Oirish, or by stage Arabs:

"You shall have - camels. Horses. An armed escort. Provisions. Desert vehicles. And - tanks."
"You're welcome."