![]() They seem very childish, but the motivation behind creating and using them can be really nuanced. In an e-mail interview, Kory Stamper, an associate editor at Merriam-Webster, said, "The first thing that comes to mind when talking about reduplicatives is the force behind them. "Phony baloney" sounds like twice the baloney, and even reduplicative terms that are half nonsense create a kind of emphasis. That led to "phonus balonus," a silly Latin-sounding variation. When "baloney" starting referring to bunk and rubbish around 1920, it wasn't long before the reduplicative term "phony baloney" popped up. There are also rarer nonsense-describing terms such as "ackamarackus," "flubdub," "twittle-twattle," and "skimble-skamble," which was used by Shakespeare. "Fiddle-faddle" and "jibber-jabber" are also common, the latter thanks to Mr. These days, it tends to refer to gobbledygook (not quite a reduplicative, but almost). The most famous is probably "mumbo jumbo," which originally referred to superstitious nonsense back in the 1700s. The language of BS and nonsense is also full of reduplicates - maybe because the words themselves sound so nonsensical. Once in school, it's not long before kids learn to taunt each other with "Nyah nyah!" or the double reduplication "Nanny nanny boo boo!" I probably don't need to mention the prominence of "pee-pee" and "poo-poo" in a child's vocabulary and a parent's life. Just about all rugrats read about Humpty Dumpty, and "gee-gee" is a child's word for a horse from the 1800s. The original might be "Mama!" Anyone with a baby likely uses terms such as "choo-choo," "no-no," and "night-night." Infantile reduplication runs the gamut from good things ("Would you like your ba-ba?") to bad things ("Do you have a boo-boo?"). These reduplicates mimic the way children learn language. Reduplicative terms appear all over English but are prominent in a few areas, like the language of childhood and anything cutesy-wutesy. ![]() Grant Barrett, host of the public radio show "A Way with Words," notes via e-mail that even the word "reduplication" has an unnecessary frill: "I've always liked the 're' in 'reduplicate.' We're doing it again! It's right there in the word!" My favorite type is "schm" reduplication, though some might say "Favorite, schmavorite!" All the types show that redundancy isn't a problem in word-making. Reduplication doesn't get any simpler than when the whole word is repeated, like when you pooh-pooh a couple's attempt to dress matchy-matchy. One type replaces a vowel while keeping the initial consonant, as in "flip-flop," "pish-posh," and "ping-pong." Another type keeps the vowel but replaces that first sound, as in "namby-pamby," "hanky-panky," "razzle-dazzle," and "timey-wimey," a word used by Dr. They set out to write their first full length album.There are several kinds of reduplication. Once they determined that they all shared the common goal of wanting to write fun, melodic punk like the tunes that had first inspired them to play music, they knew what they had to do. ![]() Over the years, the guys in Jibber Jabber’s paths began to cross. Well, they vary in age between 58 and 72. How old are the guys in Jibber Jabber, you may be wondering. And they continued to play the same set of songs that they had written in high school for 42 more years together. When Toby moved to Nashville to pursue a career as a radio disc jockey, Mark couldn’t bare not playing music him anymore. No one is sure how many bodies he left buried back home, but the authorities haven’t tracked him down yet.Īnd then you have Toby and Mark, who have been in love since high school. The story of Smoots’ departure is the age old tale of a young man throwing his shit in the back of his car and putting his former life in the rear view mirror. Eliott hitched a ride with his family, who relocated with their church, but he soon discovered that he far preferred slamming beers and playing punk to thumping bibles. The other member is from LA, and he would have to point to a more risqué part of his body to show you an anatomical correlation to his birthplace.Īs fate would have it, each of them felt the call to uproot themselves from their homes and start a new life in Music City. Three of the members of Jibber Jabber hail from the great state of Michigan, and if you ask them what area they are from, they will open up their hands and point to an area of their palm to show you the region.
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