BlueinBosnia wrote:johnny crossan wrote:In short, you claim "Kloc" isn't common Bosnian slang for a lamp post, the Sarajevo Times (among many others) have simply got it wrong. OK got it , btw I think the Devon equivalent of someone with the nickname 'muffin' would be someone who looked like a chip barm rather than ate too many of them, although there is a correlation
In short, I'm claiming the word 'kloc' was borrowed from German, where its equivalent is 'klutz'. I'm also quite happy to claim that, although I'm aware the word 'kloc' is used in parts of the country, Sarajevo isn't one of them: in Sarajevo, 'bandera' is the word used for a street light. I'm equally happy to claim that I've quite possibly never heard, seen or read the word 'kloc' in connection with Dzeko in Bosnia & Herzegovina; it's simply not a nickname on the street.
Oh, and I'd do all of that without claiming The Sarajevo Times is a reliable source: it's made by a bunch of people who are primarily students/early career lecturers from a Gulenist school/university, most of whom have lived in the country for under 2 years, and don't actually speak the language. Most of the content is recycled/paraphrased from English language media that has been published in the previous 72 hours.
I just double-checked this with my wife, too (Sarajevo native, unlike me or any of your sources): 'Kloc' in Sarajevo slang is used exclusively to refer to things that support other things - examples she gave are the block of wood put under a car once you've jacked it up, the wooden pole that's used to support the middle of a washing line, and the wooden rest you put wood on for chopping it (I honestly don't know what she means by the last one). If you used 'kloc' to describe a lamp-post there, you'd look a bit of a lexicological klutz!
Wooden pole eh? That sounds about right! What we call a clothes prop up north - so 'Kloc' is the term for a long thin pole that holds up washing lines, road signs and street lights in Bosnia. Hoist by your own petard I'm afraid BiB. I am disappointed that you've failed to notice this important piece of folklore about our only player from your country for two decades. It's also good for your mental health that you don't move from the position where you not knowing something makes it unimportant to the stage where if you don't know about it then it doesn't exist
