Talk:Gobbledygook/Archive 1

Fellatio
The claim that this derives from a term for fellatio is not sourced. It is, at best, disputed. 216.234.130.130 22:58, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Right, this was brought up on the Reference Desk/Language (Dec 14 2005), where it was pointed out that this sounds like an apocryphal folk-etymology. I think that sounds like a pretty likely explanation. I agree an authoritive source is needed for that. (Although if it's a popular enough folk-etymology it might be worthy of a mention for that sake) --BluePlatypus 23:14, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Gobbel de Gook?
I read somewhere that Maury Maverick got the term from his Dutch neighbour called Gobbel de Gook who always talked gibberish. I believe that information was once on this wiki too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.210.160.209 (talk) 16:32, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Finnish equivalents
I was a bit surprised to see a paragraph on Finnish words which sort of act like "gobbledygook" in the introduction to this article. I'm not even sure this needs to be here at all, but I gave it the benefit of the doubt and threw it into a section at the end. Deville 06:26, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Spanish version
"cantinflear" may be used in Mexico, but that's not enough to put it as example for the "Spanish" version of the word.
 * That's a verb anyway. The noun article here would be at Cantinfleada, but this just redirects to Cantinflas. —  SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 10:40, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Nonsense or nonsensical
I have always thought of gobbledygook as highly convoluted language that, while perhaps actually having meaning, it very difficult to understand, rather than simply nonsense. The example given in the second paragraph is infact convoluted language, rather than nonsense. Wschart 17:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

German Equivalent
Might it be Schabernack? Its colloquial meaning refers to nonsense in this case... --Lazer erazer 23:00, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * As a German native speaker, I've never heard of Schabernack used to mean nonsense before, colloquial or otherwise. Schabernack as I've understood it has always meant prank, and indeed that's the only sense the German WP article refers to at the time I write this. Perhapse I've just hanging out with the wrong people though — can anyone else comment? -Cohen the Bavarian 00:04, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
 * As an Austrian, I can only agree. David Marjanović (talk) 23:05, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I second that. Schabernack refers to a prank, hoax or practical joke. I would suggest Kauderwelsch as closest German equivalent. "Kauderwelsch" is a pejorative term referring to a confusing mix of different languages or words and terms that are incomprehensible to the listener but not necessarily nonsense. Duncan.blues (talk) 14:54, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I just noticed the current term "Fachchinesisch" which is totaly correct from my point of view but the english translation ("professional chinese") is not. Seeing this term one would asume it is about a professional level of Chinese language but no. It decribes a text that sounds professional, being (almost) not comprehensible to "normal" people (like Chinese text) but to professionals/specialists (Fachmännern; Männern vom Fach) and therefore being decribed by "normal" people as "Specialist's Chinese" as a defamation. So you might want to think about changing the translation to "Specialist's Chinese".--Nuckel (talk) 12:35, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Cultural influence
Is the sentence about the former tennis star's chat relevant? If so, who are the two Danish heroes?

Former Irish tennis star Bryan Crowley when describing his chat with the two Danish heroes abroad in San Luis Obispo :"Them Danish lads have perfect English, but when they speak their own language it sounds like a haype of Gobblydegook." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.97.57.140 (talk) 00:28, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

This page redirects from /Pretentious_Language
Which used to exist and was an appropriate and useful page but it got deleted and rerouted here. Pretentious language is not equivalent to gobbledygook at all. The deletion of a good page and redirection of the title to an unrelated topic seems a little bit strange. There is no record of the original, useful page. Can it be brought back somehow? BWE the real one. (talk) 21:36, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Other language examples
The other languages examples are rather poor. Simply failing to understand isn't what gobbledygook means, yet that's what all the foreign language examples are. Gobbledygook means language so complex as to be nonsense. Most of the examples are other language's equivalent of "it's Greek to me" and these examples need to be cleaned up. 69.7.41.230 (talk) 21:56, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Swedish Language examples
The term "Gobbledygook" is "rappakalja" (originally a Finish type of root bear; a mix of (unsavory) things that makes you burp), "snömos" (snow-mush), or if also bureaucratic  "byråkratpölsa" (bureaucrat-haggis). The swedish equivalence of "it's Greek to me" is "rena grekiskan" (pure Greek), but also "rena Kinesiskan" (pure Chinese). Henrik.lindberg (talk) 17:03, 11 December 2012 (UTC)