{"id":55902,"date":"2015-04-29T00:09:23","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T07:09:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/?p=55902"},"modified":"2015-04-29T00:09:23","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T07:09:23","slug":"a-bit-of-razzle-dazzle-mumbo-jumbo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/55902","title":{"rendered":"a bit of razzle-dazzle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\tIt was fun to hear someone use the term \u201chiggledy-piggledy\u201d the other day.<\/p>\n<p>Say what?<\/p>\n<p>You know, higgledy\u2013piggledy, hodge-podge, hurly-burly. These words have more in common than their shared meaning: confusion or disorder. They\u2019re formally called \u201creduplicative compounds,\u201d meaning paired words that usually differ only in a vowel or consonant. Commonly, they\u2019re called \u201cricochet words.\u201d Think nitty-gritty, lovey-dovey, tick-tock. Just saying them seems to make the sound ricochet around the room.<\/p>\n<p>Or how about exact reduplications, like bye-bye, boo-boo, or twenty-twenty? Or comparative reduplications like \u201cIt\u2019s getting hotter and hotter\u201d or \u201cMy cow is getting gentler and gentler.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One interesting thing about reduplications is that they seem to enter the language at times in history when people are feeling lighthearted and playful. For example, the 1920s (immediately following World War I) spawned reduplicative terms like the bee\u2019s knees, heebie-jeebies, and boogie-woogie.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_55906\" style=\"width: 370px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-55906\" class=\"wp-image-55906\" src=\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/800px-Louisiana_Five_Jazz_Band_famous_publicity_photo.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"360\" height=\"253\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-55906\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Louisiana Five Jazz Band, 1919, Courtesy of Nunez family collection via Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n<p>My favorite reduplication?<\/p>\n<p>Shilly-shally.<\/p>\n<p>While its first meaning, when introduced way back in 1703 in Sir Richard Steele&#8217;s <em>The Tender Husband, or The Accomplish&#8217;d Fools, a Comedy,<\/em> was to be indecisive,<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m for marrying her at once. Why should I stand shilly-shally, like a country bumpkin?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s come to mean, for me at least, an all-purpose piece of cloth for glamping adventures &#8230; and you can see how it all started with a bit of indecision. Here\u2019s the explanation from my <em>Ideabook<\/em>:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What\u2019s a ShillyShally? I came up with this name for a three-foot-square piece of pure cotton fabric when I once tried to describe my attachment to this versatile piece of cloth. &#8216;Shill I be a bandanna? Shall I be a bath towel? Shill I be a tablecloth? Shall I be a boa? Shill I be a bathing suit top? Shall I be a hankie? Shill I be a dishtowel?&#8217; It\u2019s all those things and more, and when I\u2019m camping, it becomes my faithful companion as well. Dishtowel fabric, maybe colored, works best, and I prefer one with a bit of embroidery; it just seems more special that way. It has to be thin so it dries out fast and knots easily. Sometimes, I choose pure white, especially when I\u2019m camping in the desert\u2014white just seems to speak &#8216;reflect&#8217; better. When I\u2019m backpacking, it becomes my &#8216;blankie&#8217; of sorts, a source of comfort and security.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-55903 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/shilly-wet.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"360\" height=\"541\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was fun to hear someone use the term \u201chiggledy-piggledy\u201d the other day. Say what? You know, higgledy\u2013piggledy, hodge-podge, hurly-burly. These words have more in common than their shared meaning: confusion or disorder. They\u2019re formally called \u201creduplicative compounds,\u201d meaning paired &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/55902\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/55902\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gleaming_word"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55902\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}