gibberish
nonsense talk
TRANSLATION
gibberish = Kauderwelsch, Geschwafel, Geschnatter, Gefasel, Quatsch
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
“The economic principle of “externalities” offers solid justification for taxes on oil and other fossil fuels, but the pseudo-free-market GIBBERISH known as cap and trade is nothing more than a tax masquerading as a market."
The Wall Street Journal
—
“If you’re hoping to win an argument this week, try talking neuro-GIBBERISH. Irrelevant neuroscience information – or “neurobabble” – makes for the most convincing scientific explanations, according to researchers at Villanova University and the University of Oregon.”
The Guardian
Did you
know?
gibberish
noun
- unintelligible or meaningless speech or writing
The Oxford Dictionary
—
ORIGIN
"Gibberish" is a 17th century word of uncertain origin and may simply be onomatopoeic, or imitative of a sound. Some experts suggest the origin is the Irish gob or gab (mouth) or the Irish Gaeb (back talk, backward chat).
Another theory is that it stems from the name of the famous 8th century Islamic alchemist Jābir ibn Hayyān, whose name was Latinized as “Geber”, thus the term “gibberish” arose as a reference to the incomprehensible technical jargon often used by Jābir and other alchemists.
These theories are nonetheless probably gibberish.
—
JABBERWOCKY
While a lot of gibberish is unintentional, it may on occasion be deliberate, such as Lewis Carroll’s famous Jabberwocky poem - gibberish of the finest sort:
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
—
SYNONYMS
for incomprehensible speech or writing
all Greek, applesauce, argle-bargle, babble, babbling, bafflegab, balderdash, balls, baloney, bilge, blabber, blah-blah-blah, blarney, blather, blathering, blubbering, BS, bull, bull’s wool, bunk, bunkum, burble, chin music, claptrap, cobblers, codswallop, confabulation, crapola, doggerel, double Dutch, dribble, drivel, eyewash, fiddle-faddle, fiddlesticks, flannel, flapdoodle, flimflam, flummery, gabble, garbage, gas, gibber, gibbering, GIBBERISH, gobbledegook, Greek, guff, hooey, horsefeathers, jabber, jabbering, jabberwocky, jibber-jabber, logorrhoea, mumbo jumbo, pap, patter, phooey, piffle, poppycock, prattle, rabbiting on, rambling, rigmarole, soft soap, sophistry, stuff and nonsense, stultiloquence, taradiddle, tattle, tattling, technobabble, tommyrot, tosh, twaddle, twattle, twittering, waffle, wittering, word salad, yabbering, yackety-yak, yak, yakking, yammer, yammering, yapping, yatter, yattering
—
SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:
“There is good information available on the internet, if only you can cut through all the GIBBERISH.”
—
HERZLICHEN DANK to all readers helping me keep OWAD alive with single or monthly donations at:
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and,
Paul Smith, IBAN: DE75 7316 0000 0002 5477 40
