gobbledygook

Gobbledygook or gobbledegook (sometimes gobbledegoo, gobbledeegook^[1] or other forms ^[2]) is an English term used to describe nonsensical language.

Etymology

Gobbledygook was coined by former U. S. Representative Maury Maverick, then working for the Smaller War Plants Corporation, in a March 30, 1944 memo banning "gobbledygook language".^[3] It was a reaction to his frustration with the "convoluted language of bureaucrats."^[4] He made up the word as an onomatopoeic imitation of a turkey's gobble.^[3]

Examples

Nixon's Oval Office tape from June 14 shows H. R. Haldeman describing the situation to Nixon.

"To the ordinary guy, all this is a bunch of gobbledygook. But out of the gobbledygook comes a very clear thing: you can't trust the government; you can't believe what they say; and you can't rely on their judgment. And the implicit infallibility of presidents, which has been an accepted thing in America, is badly hurt by this, because it shows that people do things the President wants to do even though it's wrong, and the President can be wrong."

Former United States President Ronald Reagan explained tax law revisions in an address to the nation, 28 May 1985:

"Most (tax revisions) didn’t improve the system, they made it more like Washington itself: complicated, unfair, cluttered with gobbledygook and loopholes designed for those with the power and influence to hire high-priced legal and tax advisers."^[5]

Former Irish tennis star Bryan Crowley when describing his chat with the two Danish heroes abroad in San Luis Obispo :"Them Danish lads have perfect English, but when they speak their own language it sounds like a type of Gobblydegook."

Michael Shanks, former chairman to the National Consumer Council of Great Britain, characterizes professional gobbledygook as sloppy jargon intended to confuse nonspecialists:

"Gobbledygook may indicate a failure to think clearly, a contempt for one's clients, or more probably a mixture of both. A system that can't or won't communicate is not a safe basis for a democracy."^[6]

The Plain English Campaign FAQ includes the following explanation:

"What's wrong with gobbledygook? We can't put it any better than a nurse who wrote about a baffling memo. She said that 'receiving information in this form makes us feel hoodwinked, inferior, definitely frustrated and angry, and it causes a divide between us and the writer.'"^[7]

In popular culture

J.K. Rowling makes "Gobbledegook" the language of goblins in the Harry Potter novels, specifically Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, in which Albus Dumbledore and Bartemius Crouch can speak gobbledegook fluently. Ludo Bagman knows one word: Bladvak ("pickaxe").

In the film Thirteen, the two main characters use a form of gobbledygook as their secret language to separate themselves from their parents.

In the British sitcom Blackadder Goes Forth, set in 1917 (27 years before the word was first used), the character General Melchett declares that he likes the word "gobbledygook" and wants to "use it more often in conversation".

In the British series Robin Hood, set in the beginning of the 15th century, the sheriff of Nottingham, Vaisey, calls Latin, in those days commenly used in the church, "gobbledygook".

The first single from Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós's album Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust is titled Gobbledigook.

Gobbledegook was a comic fantasy goblin character appearing in the magazine White Dwarf up until about issue 100, usually being 1/3 to a full page in length and appearing semi-regularly.

The Gobbledegooker was a character played by Hector Guererro at the World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment)'s Survivor Series. The character hatched from an egg and then proceeded to dance with announcer "Mean" Gene Okerlund in the ring. Widely considered one of the worst gimmicks created by wrestling fans, it has subsequently spawned the name of the annual Wrestlecrap Award for the worst gimmick of the year.

English indie pop band The Ting Tings has also used "gobbledygook" in a song titled "Impacilla Carpisung".

Gobbledegook is Hank Hill's word for nonsense in King Of The Hill.

In the video game, Final Fantasy VI, there is an enemy named Gobbledygook.

In "The Beatles Anthology", John Lennon says that he wrote teenage poems using "gobbledegook" to disguise his emotions from his aunt who cared for him while growing up.

The British kids show Alphabet Castle has a character called Gobbledygook the turkey, who always gets his words and letters jumbled up.

Other terms

Gobbledygook - pronunciation of the term in US English

In English, other common idioms indicating difficulty in understanding complicated language are: "It is all Greek to me" or "talking double Dutch". For complicated written language, a common expression is that something is "written in hieroglyphics".

In Greek, when one talks with nonsensical, specialized or generally uncommon word choices, he is said to speak "alabournezica" (αλαμπουρνέζικα, Alamburnese), a fictitious language. When somebody talks gibberish it's "acatalavistica" {ακαταλαβίστικα} (i.e. "ununderstandables"). The equivalent phrase to the American "It's all Greek to me!" is "You're speaking Chinese;" pronounced, "keeNEZzeeka" {κινέζικα, Chinese}.

Portuguese speakers describe a person speaking incomprehensibly as talking Greek (estou a falar grego?), Latin (isto para mim é latim) or Chinese (eu falei chinês?). Germans call it "chinese backwards" (chinesisch rückwärts). In French, the slang word for gobbledygook is "le charabia". It is used informally in conversations. In Italian, the term used is "to speak Arabic" (parli arabo??). Three similar-meaning words appear in Russian: "Beliberda", "Tarabarshchina" and "Abracadabra". Grammatically, they work in a similar way to a language, and refer to nonsense talk. The Finnish corresponding term is kapulakieli (cudgel language), referring to haughty, high-spirited and unintelligible office language.

This word has been voted as one of the ten English words that were hardest to translate in June 2004 by a British translation company.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Gibberish
• Golden Bull Award
• Jargon
• Legalese
• Mojibake — Random nonsense characters generated by foreign text
• Newspeak
• Nonsense
• Simlish
• SMOG (Simple Measure Of Gobbledygook)
• Sokal affair
• Stanley Unwin (comedian)
• Technobabble

References

External links

• The UN Fund for Gobbledygook
• Gobblygook generator
• "Global Shred". http://www.global-shred.com/. Retrieved 2008-02-05.