- unmeaning jargon; the language of the gipsies, synonymous with SLANG, another Gipsy word. Somner says, “_French_, GABBER; _Dutch_, GABBEREN; and our own GAB, GABBER; hence also, I take it, our GIBBERISH, a kind of canting language used by a sort of rogues we vulgarly call gipsies, a gibble-gabble understood only among themselves.” _See Introduction._ The GIBBERISH of schoolboys is formed by placing a consonant between each syllable of a word, and is called the GIBBERISH of the letter inserted. Thus, if F were the letter, it would be termed the F GIBBERISH; if L, the L GIBBERISH—as in the sentence, “How do you do?—_Howl dol youl dol?_” A GIBBERISH is sometimes formed by adding _vis_ to each word, in which the previous sentence would be—“_Howvis dovis youvis dovis?_” These things are worthy of schoolboys, as they are in ability far below the rhyming, the back, or the centre slang, each of which is constructed by people possessing no claim to literary excellence whatever. Schoolboys in France form a GIBBERISH, in a somewhat similar manner, by elongating their words two syllables, in the first of which an _r_, in the second a _g_, predominates. Thus the words _vous êtes un fou_ are spoken, _vousdregue esdregue undregue foudregue_. Fast persons in Paris, of both sexes, frequently adopt terminations of this kind, from some popular song, actor, exhibition, or political event. In 1830, the favourite termination was _mar_, saying _épicemar_ for épicier, _cafémar_ for café. In 1823, when the diorama created a sensation in Paris, the people spoke in _rama_ (_on parlait en rama_.) In Balzac’s beautiful tale, _Le Père Goriot_, the young painter at the boarding-house dinner-table mystifies the landlady by saying, “What a beautiful _soupeaurama_!” To which the old woman replies, to the great laughter of the company, “I beg your pardon, sir, it is _une soupe à choux_.” These adaptations can hardly be called slang, or we shall have everybody making a slang of his own, and refusing to believe in any one’s else—a sort of secondhand edition of the Tower of Babel.
More About gibberish
Position in the dictionary: 1431 of 4022 slang words.Next words in the dictionary: gibus, giffle-gaffle, gig, gig lamps, gill, gills, gilt, gimcrack, gin-spinner, ginger
Previous words in the dictionary: gib-face, ghost, get up, german ducks, german duck, geordie, gentleman of three ins, gentleman of four outs;, gent, gen