Product Code Database
Gibberish, also known as jibber-jabber or gobbledygook, is speech that is (or appears to be) nonsense: ranging across speech sounds that are not actual , , and specialized jargon that seems nonsensical to outsiders.
"Gibberish" is also used as an imprecation to denigrate or tar ideas or opinions the user disagrees with or finds irksome, a rough equivalent of "nonsense", "", "balderdash", or "". The implication is that the criticized expression or proposition lacks substance or congruence, as opposed to being a differing view.
The related word jibber-jabber refers to rapid talk that is difficult to understand.
It may originate from the word , which is the Angloromani variant of the Romani language word meaning "language" or "tongue". To non-speakers, the Anglo-Romany dialect could sound like English mixed with nonsense words, and if those seemingly nonsensical words are referred to as jib then the term gibberish could be derived as a descriptor for nonsensical speech.
Samuel Johnson, in A Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1755, wrote that the word gibberish "is probably derived from the chymical cant, and originally implied the jargon of Geber and his tribe." The theory was that gibberish came from the name of a famous 8th century Muslim alchemist, Jābir ibn Hayyān, whose name was Latinized as Geber. Thus, gibberish was a reference to the incomprehensible technical jargon and allegorical coded language used by Jabir and other Alchemy. After 1818, editors of Johnson's Dictionary rejected that origin theory.
A discredited alternative theory asserts that it is derived from the Irish language word gob or gab ("mouth") or from the Irish phrase Geab ar ais ("back talk, backward chat"). The latter Irish etymology was suggested by Daniel Cassidy, whose work has been criticised by linguists and scholars. The terms geab and geabaire are certainly Irish words, but the phrase geab ar ais does not exist, and the word gibberish exists as a loan-word in Irish as gibiris. (1992). 9781857910377, An Gúm. ISBN 9781857910377
The term gobbledygook was coined by Maury Maverick, a former congressman from Texas and former mayor of San Antonio. When Maverick was chairman of the Smaller War Plants Corporation during World War II, he sent a memorandum that said: "Be short and use plain English. ... Stay off gobbledygook language." Maverick defined gobbledygook as "talk or writing which is long, pompous, vague, involved, usually with Latinized words." The allusion was to a turkey, "always gobbledygobbling and strutting with ridiculous pomposity."
Mary Poppins features a song called "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," a nonsense word whose only purpose is to be the longest word in English, though it is not.
Bafflegab is a synonym, a slang term referring to confusing or a generally unintelligible use of jargon.
|
|
