Stodgy and Claggy

Fans of The Great British Bake Off (known in the U.S. as The Great British Baking Show because of a trademark issue) know that you don’t want your baked goods to be stodgy or claggy. The verb to stodge, meaning “to stuff,” goes back some 400 years and stodgyeventually came to describe something “heavy” or “bogged down.” Today, stodgy also describes a curmudgeonly person who’s set in their ways. Claggy is likely from Norse, and shows up in Scotland and Northern England to mean things like “messy,” “mucky,” or “clotted,” and is likely a linguistic relative of words involving sticky things, such as clay. This is part of a complete episode.