Reduplicated Words -II

 

Mumbo jumbo galore

 Boogie-Woogie (Left) Hip-hop (Right)

For me, an amateur in linguistics, words have a special fascination. I shared with you last week how reduplicated words caught my attention and the category in focus was ‘exact’ reduplication. Now that you are here on this page, let us give equal respect and attention to the other two types of such expressions as well.

The funny fact is that in most such pairs we know and understand one word, the second one might have no meaning or make no sense on its own, yet together they have an altogether different meaning. You would notice that in most cases the warning red line automatically appears under both or one of them in a word document as you type out the two words without the hyphen.

Of the two categories, the first is  rhyming reduplicated words where the second word rhymes with the first one. Here are some examples;

  1. For those interested in language only for airing their own thoughts, all this information about reduplicated words is merely some hocus-pocus.
2. Either clap or trap has no connection with what claptrap means. Similarly neither fuzzy nor guzzy have any connection with what fuzzy-guzzy means. We know who is handy as also who is dandy, but handy-dandy does not necessarily mean either.
3. Hee-haw, the braying of a donkey, should not be confused with the yeehaw of the cowboys who shout it to express their enthusiasm.
4. Similarly a hotshot may or may not look hot and luckily not get shot either.
5. Hurry means to move about/act in great haste while scurry means moving about in short and quick steps and together hurry-scurry comes to mean disorderly as well as hurried.
6. Helter-skelter means disorderly confusion although skelter alone means to scurry and I could not find the meaning of helter in the dictionary.
7. Hodge is the word for an English farm labourer, podge means a short, fat person but don’t we know that hodge-podge means confused mixture?
8.  I am not a fan of warm food served cold so hotpot is a life-saver for me.
9. Covid-19 had turned each of us into a house-mouse and now everyone is waiting for the pandemic to end so that they can go back to some kind of normalcy.
10. Abracadabra seems reserved only for magicians when they wave their wands in the air and take out rabbits or cheap plastic flowers from a top hat.
11. Don’t we know that legal or even religious documents have a lot of mumbo-jumbo which might cause a jumbo-sized fear in even some of the strongest of hearts?

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/05/31/317442320/unmasking-the-meaning-and-marital-disputes-behind-mumbo-jumbo

 

Historians and etymologists say the exact origin of the word is uncertain, but the Mandinka word "Maamajomboo”, which referred to a masked male dancer who took part in religious ceremonies is often cited as the source of 'mumbo jumbo' in English. (The Mandinka people of West Africa make up the largest ethnic group in what is now Ghana.)

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Francis Moore, a former clerk with the Royal African Company, first used the phrase in 1738 in the book "Travels In The Interior Districts of Africa." In the book, Moore writes the Mandinka practiced polygamy and that disputes between a husband and wife (or between wives) were resolved by the masked figure, who would dance, chant and shriek outside the homes of the offenders before making a decision and resolving the conflict. Punishment sometimes meant a beating administered by none other than the mumbo jumbo (Maamajomboo) himself.

Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall

Sometimes a writer coins a new pair which seems so right that it comes in use; like chick-flick and rom-com are the same, and I would want nothing more than to watch them on Prime time. With a carton of Chunkey-monkey ice cream in my hand, it is a super-duper way to enjoy myself.

The others which most of us use these days without ever thinking about them include blame-game, crop-top, boy-toy, easy-peasy, fender-bender, lean-mean and rough-tough etc.

The third kind of reduplicated words are called Ablaut where the second word changes its form with a change in a vowel and if you notice in most cases it is an a or o in place of i.

1.According to Oxford Dictionary - Cash registers ding while cow bells dong, but we say ding-dong goes the bell.

2. Flip-flop can be the nam e of a particular type of footwear or usually electronic device or a circuit (as in a computer) capable of assuming either of two stable states. (Merriam- Webster). We are all familiar with this expression used as a verb for our worthy politicians- to make an exact reversal of a policy (Oxford Dictionary)

3. Flip is to turn over in a sudden quick movement, flap is the way birds move their wings to fly and flip-lap is the repeated sound and motion of something loose that is moved by recurrent impulses e.g. the flip-flap of the awning in the gusty wind (Merriam Webster)

4. Clip (we know what it is) has nothing to do with clop yet surprisingly clip-clop together too just means clop - the sound of the hoofs of the horse. 

5. Chiff is connected with chaff in meaning and written together without a hyphen they come to mean, trust me, the common leaf warbler.

Common leaf warbler.

6. Anything in tip-top condition has to be ship-shape.
7. I fail to understand when knick means a small decorative object and knack means a skill, why does knick-knack mean a cheap ornament or a gewgaw.
8. What you mean rim jhim in Hindi, would translate in English to pitter-patter.
9. Ping pong is what I called table-tennis as a child.
10. I have often wondered why young students read prose in a sing-song style and their teachers never correct them?
11. One has to be firm and decisive about most of the things in life. Always being wishy-washy does not work.
12. Kit Kat has several meanings besides the chocolate wafer that goes by this name.
13. Ric-rac is a zig zag lace. Cringle-crangle also meant zig-zag but way back in the 16^th century. But a crinkle crankle wall, also known as a crinkum crankum is a wavy garden wall  ‘originally used in Ancient Egypt, but also typically found in the United Kingdom (Wikipedia) Criss cross too would go into the list of patterns because in it the lines intersect.

Ric-rac

Lazy Daisy stitch

    14. Wig-wag is the name given to the to and fro motion.
15. If you are busy in tittle tattle, it might be because you are dilly-dallying/diddle- daddling or are shilly-shally about what to do first.
16. Mish-mash is another way of saying hodgepodge.

See-saw and hell-hole are also included in the list although in these words the consonants change.

The witch in Macbeth says, “When the hurly burly is done and the battle’s lost and won.” It seems like the word is an upgrade in action and activity from hustle-bustle. 

Interestingly some of our countrymen have claimed that hurry-burry which means to rush, has Indian roots in the Hindi word हड़बड़ी (hadbadi) or Arakka parakka in Tamil. But I have not been able to confirm this.

There are scores of more reduplicated words but I am sure you did not plan on spending your Saturday deciding whether this amateur is enjoying the word play or trying to act hoity-toity about English-Vinglish or merely dishing out skimble-skamble ("Such a deale of skimble scamble stuffe" - Henry IV, William Shakespeare).

So go ahead have some party-sharty, it is great weather here.

                                                                                              - Anupama S Mani