I was amazed today when in a group of 25 undergraduate engineering students, only three had heard the word kluge. When I explained what it was, it still did not ring a bell. When I asked how they refer to an ugly, clunky, scotch-taped solution, inelegant and embarrassing, but which basically works, they came up with “hack”.
Query: Is the word “kluge” becoming obsolete among the geek community?
Pito Salas' Blog 
as someone in your other section, I can declare I have heard of kludge and even used the word. This came up in our mechanics class last year though and I might have been the only person in the class who knew the word.
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