- Today's Word
Gobbledygook
[GOB-uhl-dee-gook]
Definition
- (noun) Language that is unnecessarily complicated, technical, or difficult to understand. It often describes writing or speech that is filled with jargon, obscure vocabulary, or convoluted syntax, making it hard for the average person to comprehend.
Example
The lawyer’s contract was filled with so much legal gobbledygook that the client had no idea what they were agreeing to without consulting a dictionary and a thesaurus.
Fun Fact
The term “gobbledygook” was coined in 1944 by Maury Maverick, a Democratic congressman from Texas. Maverick was frustrated with the unclear language used in bureaucratic documents and memoranda, which he felt was a “gobbledygook monster” that consumed and obscured meaning. The term quickly caught on and has since been used to describe any form of unclear, complicated, or technical language that confuses or alienates readers or listeners. In 1948, the New York Times credited Maverick with coining the term, cementing its place in the English language as a humorous and critical way to describe unclear or confusing communication.
(adjective) Lacking substance, interest, or mature thought; naive and simplistic in a way that reveals inexperience.
The critic dismissed the debut novel as jejune — competently written, technically adequate, and utterly devoid of anything worth remembering.
Jejune derives from the Latin jejunus, meaning “fasting” or “empty” — literally describing a stomach that has not been fed. The same root gives us jejunum, the section of the small intestine named for its tendency to be found empty after death. It entered English in the 17th century carrying its literal sense of emptiness before acquiring its figurative meaning of something intellectually or creatively hollow — content that has the form of nourishment without any of the substance.