Reader question:
What is stopgap, as in "a stopgap measure"?
My comments:
A look up any dictionary will yield you something, but let me find a way for you to remember it.
There's a leak in the pipe in the garden. Instead of replacing the pipe with a new one, you fetch some tape to paper over the crack. The crack in the pipe is a "gap", make the tape a "stop" and you have a stopgap – something to "stop" a "gap".
Taping over the leak may work for now but you know it's still a leaking pipe. Some time in future, perhaps soon, it'll start leaking water again. So therefore, the tape is a stopgap measure, a measure that is temporary, expedient and very probably not the best solution, or substitute to be exact.
Stopgap reminds me of makeshift, a word obviously formed from "make" and "shift". Shift means change. Makeshift hence means to make a change and make it work.
It may not work the best but it will do under the circumstances, for lack of a better alternative if you will. Think of the term "make do". It means to make do – make something work, manage with what's available right now. Same thing: it probably won't work (that well), but you make it work nevertheless.
In short, both stopgap and makeshift means a substitute you make do with on a temporary basis (to be replaced if and when a better alternative is found).
And according to my research, stopgap has been in the English language since 1684, makeshift since 1683.
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