Learn English – Does the term “garbledy gook” have racist origins

etymologyexpressionsoffensive-languageracismslang

For me, the term garbledy gook simply means garbage; unintelligible text or speech. An example usage would be:

If you open that binary file in notepad, you'll just see a load of
garbledy gook

However, I just used this on the phone to a customer and, as I said it, I wondered about the origins. The word gook by itself is a racist or derogatory term for people of south east Asian origins (source) and the last thing I want to do at work (or anywhere, to be honest!) is use that kind of language.

Where did this phrase come from? Does it have origins in racism?

Best Answer

The word is spelled gobbledygook and does not have racist origins (although they are fowl). Here is the etymology:

also gobbledegook, "the overinvolved, pompous talk of officialdom" [Klein], 1944, Amer.Eng., first used by U.S. Rep. Maury Maverick, D.-Texas, (1895-1954), a grandson of the original maverick and chairman of U.S. Smaller War Plants Corporation during World War II. First used in a memo dated March 30, 1944, banning "gobbledygook language" and mock-threateaning, "anyone using the words activation or implementation will be shot." Maverick said he made up the word in imitation of turkey noise. Another word for it, coined about the same time, was bafflegab (1952).



Edit: As JLG says, "Wikipedia's entry is pretty good, too.

Gobbledygook or gobbledegook (sometimes gobbledegoo) is any text containing jargon or especially convoluted English that results in it being excessively hard to understand or even incomprehensible. "Bureaucratese" is one form of gobbledygook.

There are two distinct and opposite cases. One is that incomprehensible material is actual gibberish. In the other some abstruse material is either ineptly presented or is subjectively perceived to be gibberish due to a lack of preparation.

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