Definition and Examples of Gibberish

Gibberish is unintelligible, nonsensical, or meaningless language. Similarly, gibberish may refer to speech or writing thats needlessly obscure or pretentious. In this sense, the term is similar to gobbledygook. Gibberish is often used in a playful or creative way—as when a parent speaks to an infant or when a child experiments with combinations of vocal sounds that have no meaning. The word itself is sometimes used as a term of disdain for a foreign or unknown language or for the speech of a particular individual (as in Hes talking gibberish).   Grammalot is a particular type of gibberish that was originally used by medieval jesters and troubadours. According to  Marco Frascari, Grammalot consists of a few real words, interspersed with nonsense syllables mimicking the sound  utterances to convince the audience  that it is a real known language.   Examples Gliddy glup gloopyNibby nabby noopyLa la la lo lo.Sabba sibby sabbaNooby abba nabbaLee lee lo lo.Tooby ooby wallaNooby abba nabbaEarly morning singing song. (Chorus to Good Morning Starshine, by  Galt MacDermot,  James Rado, and  Gerome Ragni. Hair, 1967)Thrippsy pillivinx,Inky tinky pobblebockle abblesquabs? — Flosky! beebul trimble flosky! — Okul scratchabibblebongibo, viddle squibble tog-a-tog, ferrymoyassity amsky flamsky ramsky damsky crocklefether squiggs.Flinkywisty pommSlushypipp  (Edward Lear, letter to  Evelyn Baring, 1862)God what a husband Id make! Yes, I should get married!So much to do! like sneaking into Mr Jones house late at nightand cover his golf clubs with 1920 Norwegian books . . .And when the milkman comes leave him a note in the bottlePenguin dust, bring me penguin dust, I want penguin dust. (Gregory Corso, Marriage, 1958)Lt. Abbie Mills: Chopping down a Christmas tree?Ichabod Crane: Altogether a nonsensical concept. Celebrating Yuletide with a titular display of lumber.Lt. Abbie Mills: Wow. Bah-humbug to you too, Ebenezer.Ichabod Crane: That was all gibberish.Lt. Abbie Mills: Scrooge. A Dickensian character. A grump. (The Golem, Sleepy Hollow, 2013)Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind:Says suum, mun, ha, no, nonny.Dolphin my boy, my boy, sessa! let him trot by. (Edgar in William Shakespeares  King Lear, Act 3, Scene 4)I encourage teachers to speak in their own voices. Dont use the gibberish of the standards writers. (Jonathan Kozol in an interview with  Anna Mundow, The Advocate of Teaching Over Testing. The Boston Globe, October 21, 2007)   Etymology of Gibberish - The exact origin of  the word gibberish  is unknown, but one explanation traces its beginnings to an eleventh-century Arab named Geber, who practiced a form of magical chemistry called alchemy. To avoid getting into trouble with church officials, he invented strange terms that prevented others from understanding what he was doing. His mysterious language (Geberish) may have given rise to the word gibberish. (Laraine Flemming, Words Count, 2nd ed. Cengage, 2015) - Etymologists have been scratching their heads over [the origin of the word gibberish] almost since it first appeared in the language in the middle 1500s. There’s a set of words—gibber, jibber, jabber, gobble and gab (as in gift of the gab)—that may be related attempts at imitating incomprehensible utterances. But how they arrived and in what order is unknown. (Michael Quinion, World Wide Words, October 3, 2015) Charlie Chaplins Gibberish in The Great Dictator   - [Charlie] Chaplins performance as Hynkel [in the film The Great Dictator] is a tour de force, one of his greatest performances of all, and certainly his greatest performance in a sound film.* He is able to get around the arbitrary and limited meaning which dialogue implies by screeching his vaudevillian German doubletalk of utter gibberish--the result is sound without defined meaning...the finest weapon by which to satirize the disturbing and disturbed speeches of Hitler as seen in the newsreels. (Kyp Harness,  The Art of Charlie Chaplin. McFarland, 2008)- Gibberish captures that foundational static out of which wording arises...[I]t is my view that gibberish is an education onto the relation of sound to speech, sense to nonsense; it reminds us of the primary phonetic noise by which we learn to articulate, and from which we might draw from again, in acts of parody, poetry, romance, or storytelling, as well as through the simple pleasures of a disordered semantic.Here Id like to bring into consideration Charlie Chaplins use of gibberish in the film The Great Dictator. Produced in 1940 as a critical parody of Hitler, and the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany, Chaplin uses the voice as a primary vehicle for staging the brutal absurdity of the dictators ideological views. This appears immediately in the opening scene, where the first lines spoken by the dictator (as well as by Chaplin, as this was his first talking film) wields an unforgettable force of effusive gibberish: Democrazie schtunk! Liberty schtunk! Freisprechen schtunk! Chaplins nonsensical enactments throughout the film highlight language as a material susceptible to mutation, appropriation, and poetical transfiguration that no less delivers potent meaning. Such oral moves on the part of Chaplin reveal to what degree gibberish may perform to supply the thrust of speech with the power of critique. (Brandon LaBelle,  Lexicon of the Mouth: Poetics and Politics of Voice and the Oral Imaginary. Bloomsbury, 2014) Frank McCourt on Gibberish and Grammar If you said to someone, John store to the went, theyd think it was gibberish.Whats gibberish?Language that makes no sense.I had a sudden idea, a flash. Psychology is the study of the way people behave. Grammar is the study of the way language behaves...I pushed it. If someone acts crazy, the psychologist studies them to find out whats wrong. If someone talks in a funny way and you cant understand them, then youre thinking about grammar. Like,  John store to the went...No stopping me now. I said,  Store the to went John. Does that make sense? Of course not. So you see, you have to have words in their proper order. Proper order means meaning and if you dont have meaning youre babbling and the men in the white coats come and take you away. They stick you in the gibberish department of Bellevue. Thats grammar. (Frank McCourt,  Teacher Man: A Memoir. Scribners, 2005) The Lighter Side of Gibberish Homer Simpson: Listen to the man, Marge. He pays Barts salary. Marge Simpson: No, he doesnt. Homer Simpson: Why dont you ever support my gibberish? Id do it if you were stupid.(How Munched Is That Birdie in the Window? The Simpsons, 2010)