Word: gibberish
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...themselves or entrusted to then- maternal grandmother, Paula Kunert, 76, a stern disciplinarian who spoke no English. They became frightened of strangers and dogs and stayed inside day after day, playing by themselves while then" parents slept or sought work. The parents did notice something they considered "childish gibberish." Playing in the corner, Gracie, the dominant twin, would hold up an object and seem to give it a name. Ginny would respond. High-speed dialogue followed. "They could say simple words," Tom Kennedy remembers, "mostly like Indians would talk in the movies...
...secret trip to Moscow in 1972 marked my introduction to the use of the "babbler." This was a cassette tape I had brought with me, which played a bizarre recording of what seemed like several dozen voices talking gibberish simultaneously. If I wanted to confer with my colleagues without being overheard by listening devices, we would gather around the babbler, speaking softly among ourselves. Theoretically anyone listening in would be unable to distinguish the real conversation from the cacophony of recorded voices. Whether it worked or not we could never be sure. The only certainty was that anyone trying...
Clay Felker, returning in 1977 as a majority owner of the magazine he had once worked on, portentously declared that the "new Esquire" would provide the civilizing function for today's professional or managerial man"- a kind of Madison Avenue gibberish that could only confuse readers. He added a lot of business stones. But Esquire's genes caught up with Felker: "I made the mistake of trying to change the magazine too much...
...EVEN AS HE drifts, Thompson's perspective is valuable. Although a hundred other publications may cover an event, Thompson's "goddamn gibberish" will give it a flavor and texture that wouldn't otherwise get into print. Reading Thompson and no one else won't give readers a "full understanding" of what goes on during a Presidential election, a Super Bowl or a Chicano uprising in L.A. But neither will the calculated "uni-tone" of Time magazine or the caution--sometimes necessary but not always illuminating--of "objective" journalism. The Great Shark Hunt ensures that the "bad craziness" that...
Then comes the general commentary. Adjectives like "pretentious," "sleazy" and merely "stupid," nouns like "gibberish," "bunk" and "rubbish" fly from the page like hot spittle. The world suddenly becomes overrun with "boobs" and "nitwits" and "barbarians" and their synonyms: "vice presidents," "curriculum developers" and, above all, "educationists" who have made careers out of not teaching Johnny to read while not learning to write themselves...