core dump

n.

[common Iron Age jargon, preserved by Unix]

  1. [techspeak] A copy of the contents of core, produced when a process is aborted by certain kinds of internal error.

  2. By extension, used for humans passing out, vomiting, or registering extreme shock. “He dumped core. All over the floor. What a mess.” “He heard about X and dumped core.”

  3. Occasionally used for a human rambling on pointlessly at great length; esp. in apology: “Sorry, I dumped core on you”.

  4. A recapitulation of knowledge (compare bits, sense 1). Hence, spewing all one knows about a topic (syn. brain dump), esp. in a lecture or answer to an exam question. “Short, concise answers are better than core dumps” (from the instructions to an exam at Columbia). See core.

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A core dump lands our hero in hot water.

(This is the last cartoon in the Crunchly saga. The previous cartoon was 76-05-01.)