[lit-ideas] The Song of the Turkey (Was: Gobbledygook)
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2004 08:31:10 EDT
Andreas Ramos reports:
>>>"googly", "spam", and "gobbledegook" have been
>>>voted among the most untranslatable
>>>words in the English language.
Eric Yost is puzzled:
>>Gobbledegook is "quatsch" in German isn't it?
>>Surely many languages have their quatsch?
Peter Junger corrects:
>What you are saying is Quatsch;
>``goobldegook'' is ``Kauderwelsch.''
----
Interestingly, the spelling in the OED2 entry is "gobbledYgook", onomatopeic
for the song of the _meleagris gallopavo_. Below.
Cheers,
J. L.
----
From the OED
"gobbledygock", orig. U.S. Also gobbledegook. [Repr. a turkey-cock's
gobble.]
Figurative:
Official, professional, or pretentious verbiage or jargon.
Cites:
1944 Amer. N. & Q. Apr. 9/1
Gobbledygook: Maury Maverick's name for the long high-sounding words of
Washington's red-tape language.
1944 M. MAVERICK in N.Y. Times Mag. 21 May 11/1
Just before Pearl Harbor, I..got my baptism under â??gobbledygookâ??..its
definition: talk or writing which is long, pompous, vague, involved, usually
with
Latinized words. It is also talk or writing which is merely long.
1945 Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News 7 Aug. 4/3
The explanations sound like gobbledegook to me.
1947 Time 7 July 7/1 The Veterans Administration translated its bureaucratic
gobbledygook.
1950 â??S. RANSOMEâ?? Deadly Miss Ashley ii. 16 It now seemed a tricked-up
system of gobbledegook wherein justice had foundered.
1951 WODEHOUSE Old Reliable vii. 94 You insult my intelligence by trying to
put gobbledy-gook like that over me.
1959 M. DOLINSKY There is no Silence i. 5, I had been subjected to too much
psychiatric gobbledygook.
1968 M. BLACK Labyrinth of Lang. vi. 124 Jargon (or â??gobbledygookâ??, to
use
the more expressive term).
(http://0-dictionary.oed.com.csulib.ctstateu.edu/cgi/entry_main/00096328?case_id=gmtb-LVvTVR-536&p=0&sp=0&qt=1&ct=0&ad=0&d=1-D#top)
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