TODAY THE WORD IS GOBBLEDYGOOK. This crazy sounding word means a language that is meaningless or is made unintelligible by excessive use of abstruse technical terms; nonsense. I am sure several of you are asking why this word for the blog topic. One reason may be it is catchy and sometimes I like getting everyone’s attention by an unusual subject or something that catches my attention and I see a message to relay using a word, an activity, or picture which speaks volumes to us. Whoever came up with gobbledygook had a great sense of humor to link this gibberish word to mean use of unintelligible language, too many technical terms or plain nonsense and that is when the message came to me. We have come to live in a gobbledygook world as let’s take this word apart and I think you might agree with me. Have you ever listened to a turkey gobble, gobble? It is just rhetoric and it is monotonous to listen to the sound. So we have the gobble part of gobbledygook. Let’s refer to how it was used: (reference source Wikipedia. According to Michael Quinion on his World Wide Words website the word was first coined on 21 May 1944 by Maury Maverick, a congressman from Texas. His comments, recorded in the New York Times Magazine, were made when Maverick was the Democratic chairman of the US Congress Smaller War Plants Committee. He was being critical of the obscure language used by other committee members. The allusion was to a turkey, “always gobbledy gobbling and strutting with ludicrous pomposity.”[1] It is sometimes abbreviated slightly to gobbledygoo.[2]
Contemporary reports, as shown by a United Press dispatch published in the Pittsburgh Press, identify the date of Maverick’s statement as March 31.[3] Maverick’s message includes the following sentence: “Stay off the gobbledygook language. It only fouls people up.”[3]
What I gathered is not to “foul” the world with useless language and nonsense. I am not referring to kidding, having fun, joking, etc. I am referring to how we spend our time encouraging instead of discouraging; positive input instead of negative comments; loving words instead of hate and prejudice; inspirational words instead of cursing and assertion instead of paranoia in our lives. My deeper thought today is a request to put our energy into helping this world get better and wiser and to encourage a spiritual life instead of a life filled with goobledygook. One little word of encouragement; one I Love You; one I Believe in You; and most importantly, I Believe God Loves Me and You may turn a person’s life around. Live life; love life; and live life to the fullest by making each word and each action count.
DAILY FEATURED BIBLE VERSE:
Proverbs 12:18
There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.
(c) copyright 2013 Arline Lott Miller. The material here copyrighted, use only by permission.
