Tuesday, March 02, 2004

Since I seem to have lots of time in life today, let me get to talking gibberish!
Dictionary.com defines gibberish as
gib·ber·ish (jbr-sh) n.
1) Unintelligible or nonsensical talk or writing.
2) Highly technical or esoteric language.
3) Unnecessarily pretentious or vague language.

Therefore, sentences like "Avinash Iyer is a terrible bore" or "I am trying to work around the problem by introducing a fifth dimension resonating quantum wave into the interference pattern caused by the cylindro-conical movements of the bowel due to a sixth degree laxative addition in the digestive system of a guinea pig found in the sub-tropical forests of Xichualand." are good examples of gibberish.
These 2 sentences are an example of the first meaning given above.

For examples of gibberish of the second kind..... click here or here . These links would lead to literature that are too technical, and also unintelligible (double gibberish???).

Talking about gibberish in the technical sense, an IT professional likes me earns his bread by visiting and trying in vain to understand links like the ones above. So much that, he becomes an expert gibberer ("she"s are born gibberers). Take a sample statement that I would typically encounter in a day, "Hey dude, all you have to do is introduce a design pattern by imbibing a top-down waterfall approach. code this procedure using the above appraoch and when you are midway coming down from the top, change tack and use facade pattern and start the bottom-up approach". Woah!!!!! For some techies that might make sense.... but for me (incidentally ppl like me are classified under the category techie-from-far-but-far-from-techie) it makes as much sense as laxatives on a sub-tropical guinea pig from Xichualand!!

The third kind of gibberish, is the kinda thing you would hear on a space ship without your Babel Fish. Example of this could be "Wufawufawufawa wafuwafuwafuwafuwu hijeshiheshijeshijeshas". This actually means, "I am trying to work around the problem by introducing a fifth dimension resonating quantum wave into the interference pattern caused by the cylindro-conical movements of the bowel due to a sixth degree laxative addition in the digestive system of a guinea pig found in the sub-tropical forests of Xichualand." in a vague language spoken by ancient Incas of Machu Pichu!

But, this kinda gibberish is relative. What maybe gibberish for one, may not be gibberish for another. My friend Ramkumar understands and converses using phrases like "Tugawuga tagapiga tiggubiggu makkashakka". An entire continent (Australia)also converses using the same kinda gibberish and try telling the world that "Fowr Gawssake, I aym speykin English maite".. yeah right!!!!!

Shakku pilla disufgas akhopakhthor, dilloyuwetert pashtijanitos.
That means "Thats enough gibberish for the day, see you with more tomorrow!!" in a vague dialect of Tulu :)

--Avi

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home