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“gobbledegook”
1. An English term used to describe nonsensical language, or sounds that resemble language but have no meaning; encrypted text: When she was first learning to talk, Sally uttered a lot of gobbledygook.
2. Something that is being expressed in an overly complicated manner: In an effort to sound very intellectual, the professor included a lot of gobbledygook in his lectures.
3. Unintelligible, inflated language; usually the hallmark of many government agencies: Having waded through the gobbledygook of the government documents, Mildred decided not to apply for the grant.
4. Involved, pedantic, repetitious, and pompous jargon, relying heavily upon Latinized expressions and meaningless clichés; applied especially to the written and spoken language of bureaucrats and professional politicians: The doctors attempted to impress each other by quoting a lot of gobbledygook about their theories and discoveries.
5. Etymology: coined by Texas Congressman, Maury Maverick, U.S. Congressman and chairman of the Smaller War Plant Corporation, in a 1944 memo after attending a wordy committee meeting. He is said to have vehemently denounced the long-winded, pretentious speech of his colleagues and other government spokespeople.
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2. Something that is being expressed in an overly complicated manner: In an effort to sound very intellectual, the professor included a lot of gobbledygook in his lectures.
3. Unintelligible, inflated language; usually the hallmark of many government agencies: Having waded through the gobbledygook of the government documents, Mildred decided not to apply for the grant.
4. Involved, pedantic, repetitious, and pompous jargon, relying heavily upon Latinized expressions and meaningless clichés; applied especially to the written and spoken language of bureaucrats and professional politicians: The doctors attempted to impress each other by quoting a lot of gobbledygook about their theories and discoveries.
5. Etymology: coined by Texas Congressman, Maury Maverick, U.S. Congressman and chairman of the Smaller War Plant Corporation, in a 1944 memo after attending a wordy committee meeting. He is said to have vehemently denounced the long-winded, pretentious speech of his colleagues and other government spokespeople.
He later said the word just came to him, but perhaps he was thinking of the turkey gobblers back in his native Texas and of the "gobbledygobbling" sound they made while strutting so pompously, and that their gobbling ended in a "gook" sound.
Gobbledygook was just a continuation of the New Deal's bureaucratic officialese, which delighted in such terms as "activation, clearance, coordinator, implementation, objective, to process", and "roll-back".
By the 1950s, such talk, or writing, was also called "bafflegab" and by the early 60s, "Pentagonese"; and even now, "whitehallese".
Also known as, "bureaucratese", or the legalistic, wordy style of communication often characteristic of government announcements.
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This entry is located in the following unit:
English Words in Action, Group G
(page 3)