GOBBLEDEGOOK
Gobbledegook, "The overinvolved, pompous talk of officialdom" [Klein], 1944, American English, first used by Texas politician Maury Maverick (1895-1954), a grandson of the inspiration for Maverick and chairman of U.S. Smaller War Plants Corporation during World War II, in a memo dated March 30, 1944, banning "gobbledygook language" and mock-threatening, "anyone using the words activation or implementation will be shot." Maverick said he made up the word in imitation of turkey noise.
Meaning: Language that loses meaning or is difficult to understand because too many technical terms are used. Stephen Pinker uses it brilliantly: “Academics in the softer fields dress up the trivial and obvious with the trappings of scientific sophistication, hoping to bamboozle their audiences with highfalutin gobbledygook.”
Unlike ‘absurd’ and ‘ludicrous’, ‘gobbledygook’ was not borrowed into the English language or “built out of preexisting parts like prefixes, suffixes and roots” (i.e. morphemes) as Pinker puts it, but coined by a man infuriated with the kind of bureaucratic jargon used during WWII. This word is interesting for its novelty (only 70 years old!) and the sheer number of records documenting its inception, including a first-hand account from its creator-wordsmith, Maury Maverick.
Maverick was the chairperson of the Smaller War Plants Corporation in 1944. Annoyed with the excessive use of lengthy and vague Latinized terms in government memoranda, he sent out a terse memorandum to the whole corporation with the following words:
“Stay off gobbledygook language. It only fouls people up. For the Lord’s sake, be short and say what you’re talking about… There are no ‘levels’—local government is as high as Washington Government. No more patterns, effectuating, dynamics. Anyone using the words “activation” or “implementation” will be shot.”
Local newspapers lapped it up. The Washington Post, for instance, published an editorial poking fun at Maverick’s memorandum: “On several evenings of late, we have heard faint percussive noises coming from the direction of Mr. Maverick’s headquarters on Indiana Avenue, suggesting that the firing squads may already have been at work. Of course, it may only have been thunder.”
His explanation for how the word was formed? “Perhaps I was thinking of the old bearded turkey gobbler back in Texas who was always gobbledygobbling and strutting with ridiculous pomposity. At the end of his gobble there was a sort of gook.”Does this remind you of any of our present or past United States Presidents?
In the modern world someone should start a blog named GOBBLEDEGOOK and start a social revolution. Things included in the revolution are reams of feedback to the politicians, wall street, main line bankers, currency manipulators, crypto, world politics, foodbanks, tree huggers, do-gooders, war mongers, scientists, pirates, computer manuals, google how to fix your software problems, and religious fanatics of every religion.
Children in particular will gravitate to the gobbledygook mantra having gobbledygook cartoons, gobbledygook Halloween costumes, festivals, parades and their own grand master. Adults will enjoy the gobbledygook cook-book featuring ice cream, turkey menu and the great white hunters of America can sit in the woods trying to fool wild turkeys to their poor imitation of the gobble.
THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW: The Senators and House of Representatives assets before and after leaving office?
THINGS YOU MAY WANT TO SAVE: The President of the United States pardons and saved one turkey each Thanksgiving day.
ZENTRAVELER SAYS: Every time you read an untruth, lies or bullshit simply respond back: GOBBLEDEGOOK
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