Bafflegab was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 24 January 2014 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Gobbledygook. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.
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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
I see no reason in principle why Gobbledygook and Gibberish should not be treated in a single article. Each describes nonsensical language use, especially speech. I have no strong preference for the name of the merged article; Gobbledygook is slightly larger at present, but Gibberish is older. I propose merging the articles into a single title, and would ask anyone who supports such a move to suggest where they think the merged article should be located (i.e. what its title should be). Cnilep (talk) 02:41, 15 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
A contrary view is well supported by the literature: Although Gibberish also been used to describe semantically empty but phonologically coherent elements in the spontaneous speech output of schizophrenic patients ([1]) it is also used to describe a subset of ludlings (language games) (see [2]) allegedly used in the USA and Sweden ([3]). These ludlings may sound like like nonsense to the non-initiate but are in fact meaningful. A relatively recent example appeared in the UK courts ([4]) but the sense of an intractable language that may in fact be meaningful goes back at least as far as back as the 1930s as shown in the following quote:
A number of my fellow prisoners were flashmen, (as they termed themselves) an appellation appropriate to such rogues and sharpers, as make exclusive use of the flash lingo. This is partly English and party [sic] an arbitrary gibberish, which, when spoken, presents to such hearers, as are not initiated into its mysteries, a mere unintelligible jargon, but in the flash fraternity is, peculiarly, significant. ([5]) (p291)
Does that sense of "gibberish" differ significantly from this sense of "gobbledygook" (from the article's lead section)? "One [case of gobbledygook] is that incomprehensible material is actual gibberish. In the other some obscure material is either ineptly presented or is subjectively perceived to be gibberish". Cnilep (talk) 23:17, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Merge the articles under the older name, Gibberish. Both terms can refer to meaningless speech (and text) as well as speech/text that is only perceived to be meaningless. The article can then describe contexts in which the terms have been used in a more technical sense, and are not considered identical. More often, though, both words are used as synonyms for "babble" or "nonsense" in a pejorative sense, and are identical to each other in meaning. — ℜob C.aliasALAROB21:41, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
^Denham, K. & Lobeck, A. (2013) “Linguistics for Everyone: An introduction.” Wadsworth Cengage Learning, USA.
^Laycock, D. (1972). “Towards a Typology of Ludlings, or Play-Languages.” Linguistic Communications: Working Papers of the Linguistic Society of Australia 6: 61-113.
^Pannick, D. (2003). “When a musical judgment hits just the right note”. The Times (London), July 8, Features; Law, 4.
^Robertson, J.P.S & Shamsie, S.J. (1959). “A systematic examination of Gibberish in a multilingual Schizophrenic patient.” Language & Speech, 2, 1-8.
^Tufts, H. (ed. Edmund Pearson) (1930). “The Autobiography of a Criminal: Henry Tufts.” New York: Duffield.
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
