Tuesday, April 10, 2007

BBB Etymology - Gobbledygook

The term was coined on March 30, 1944 by Maury Maverick, chairman of the United States Smaller War Plants Corporation. In a memo banning "gobbledygook language", he wrote "anyone using the words activation or implementation will be shot". Maverick later used the word in the New York Times Magazine on May 21, 1944 as part of a further complaint against the obscure language used by his colleagues. His inspiration, he said, was the turkey, "always gobbledy gobbling and strutting with ludicrous pomposity. At the end of his gobble, there was a sort of gook."