Gobbledegook

Confused, muddled, incoherent. Gobbledegook.

Like double-dutch it’s a word that tries to describe the kind of word salad some people talk rather than a measured and clear explanation.

If you have ever seen “Sir Humphrey”, the political private secretary in “Yes, Minister”, and “Yes, Prime Minister”, the BBC series from the 1980s and 90s, you will know he would used gobbledegook or flimflam (another lovely word) to blag his way through telling the Minister important information without telling him clearly. It’s  in this case a method of obfuscation, using a long tangle of incomprehensible words that is sneaky and makes the story he is trying to tell virtually impossible to understand.

It’s an informal noun and according to Google it is defined as :

language that is meaningless or is made unintelligible by excessive use of technical terms.

“reams of financial gobbledygook”

I hope you enjoyed this word!

Yes, Prime minister

Satire, a wonderful thing. I’m watching an old episode of ‘Yes, Prime minister.’ it’s probably forty years old and it still speaks to what’s going on in the UK at the moment. Boris Johnson has been fined for breaking Covid rules, and he will not resign although if he breaks the rules he is expected to do so. Now he’s changed the rules so that he only has to apologise (again). The man is almost more of a ridiculous figure than the Prime minister in the comedy programme!