In truth, there are more good variations on the basic PC than we could wiggle a floppy disk at.
What does the phrase “wiggle a floppy disk at” mean?
In truth, there are more good variations on the basic PC than we could wiggle a floppy disk at.
What does the phrase “wiggle a floppy disk at” mean?
I think the author made the phrase up. Based on the given context I would say it’s supposed to mean ‘a great number of options’ but I would be interested to hear @Alan’s and @Andrea’s or anyone else’s opinion too.
I don’t think you can use “wiggle a floppy disk at” - to me it doesn’t make sense with ‘at’.
wiggle - move around
floppy disk - a disk used for storage (many years ago)
Maybe the floppy disk is jammed in the drive and in order to dislodge it, you need to wiggle it around.
@Andrea: Many thanks for confirming that ‘wiggle a floppy disk at’ doesn’t make much sense if any.
@Sitifan: Out of interest, can you please tell us where you found that sentence? 提前致謝
My original sentence was quoted from Peter Norton’s DOS Guide, page xvi. (published in 1987)
The following sentence is quoted from a newer edition, published in 1989.
In truth, there are more good variations on the old workhorse AT than we could wiggle a floppy disk at.
https://books.google.com.tw/books?id=__RLAAAAYAAJ&q=“than+we+could+wiggle+a+floppy+disk+at.”&dq=“than+we+could+wiggle+a+floppy+disk+at.”&hl=zh-TW&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiZ9YrOmd3mAhWqyIsBHb4-Do4Q6AEIKDAA
To wiggle is to move something back and forth. When you dance, you probably wiggle your hips. If you wiggle them too much, your mother might wiggle a finger at you and say “Settle down!”
This is a humorous variation on the expression - shake a stick at - used when you suggest there are more than you can imagine. This is an example -
We have an awful lot of public houses in this town. Indeed there are more than you can shake a stick at.
This is believed to be of a military origin where the enemy army is much bigger than yours and you couldn’t really defeat them even by threatening them with a stick.
Hi Alan, thank you very much for sharing this, I would not have been able to make this connection . What’s interesting is that the book the phrase appeared in (Peter Norton’s DOS Guide) was published in 1989, at a time when the web as we know it today had not been born yet. So, the phrase had not been indexed up until today thanks to Sitifan .
Thanks for this, @Alan.
I was thinking about this after my post earlier and wondered about whether it was aimed at someone.