[artificial]

Borks also the origin of the term “Borked” since he was candid in his answers about constitutional policy and this cost him nomination and is now why Supreme Court nominees are more opaque with what they say vs what they think.

[mikeyouse]

I think carrying out Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre to cover up his numerous watergate crimes was a bigger factor in the failed nomination.. but he certainly did turn into a focus of a lot of grievance.

[TedDoesntTalk]

I'm fairly certain the word existed and was in use before 1988. Do you have a reference for this incident causing the creation of that word?

[pbhjpbhj]

They seem like they might be parallel and unconnected etymologies -- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bork#Etymology_2.

It would seem strange that a political etymology had a specific impact on the computing world. But the mistype of broken as "borken", and further mis-grammaring to borked would seem consistent with the humour of computing people IME.

The use in computer circles is also just one of "generally broken" (or utterly broken, perhaps) rather than "politically discreditted". I think they might be just coincidental homonyms.

Here's a [not particularly] interesting prior use: https://archive.org/details/Florida_Flambeau_1959/page/n221?... someone borked the pronounciation in Russian of beetroot soup ("borsht", Russian "s" is with a "c" shaped letter).

[NSCFType]

> VERB

> informal US

> Obstruct (someone, especially a candidate for public office) by systematically defaming or vilifying them.

> Origin

> 1980s from the name of Robert Bork (1927–2012), an American judge whose nomination to the Supreme Court (1987) was rejected following unfavourable publicity for his allegedly extreme views.

from OED https://www.lexico.com/definition/bork