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What's the point in meaningless words?1. Well, there are times when grammar dictates a word is required even though none is appropriate. 2. There are other times when we don't want to display our ignorance, so use a meaningless word that sounds impressive. 3. And still other times when we need to explain something but don't have the time or energy to trawl through a dictionary. 4. <your category here> A recent example: I read an article describing a disease as 'idiopathic'. This comes under category 2 above, as it means, near enough, 'arising from some peculiar, unknown cause', but sounds informative. Meaningless nouns ( placeholders?) are especially useful under category 3: 'thingy', 'wotsit' or my personal favourite 'doobrie'.  So - do you know of any other meaningless words, that fall into any of the categories? Personal favourites as well as those used by others are valid, with bonus points for words that sound meaningful (category 2). Fisk
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wossname, thingumajig, wossface (for a person), chief cook and bottlewasher (when you don't want to talk about, or explain, your job in detail) etc. Also, in AWADspeak, newly made Enthusiasts. 
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Well, like, yaknow, like, i really, like, have a thing against, like, meaningless words, yaknow, like, when speaking. Yaknow, like how, like some people, like, just don't really get to the point, 'cause, youknow, like its so * obvious?
( * very frequently f***ing)
this board has wonderful word plays, and so much thought goes into each word. If a word is misused, the topic veers off into playing with the misused word, with so much creativity, It leaves me feeling like the unarmed opponent in the game of wits!
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It leaves me feeling like the unarmed opponent in the game of wits!
Me too.
For instance, I can only fuzzilly deduce that the term you used - yaknow - is a corruption of Yak now. This, presumably (and I'm awful at looking things up) comes from Tibet, and refers either to a) the desire to eat yak stew, now, or b) using Yak as the word to refer to part of a yak (isn't this the opposite of synecdoche?), a desire for a steaming bowl of yak milk.
Given that Tibetans are not famous for wordplay, I would have to further conclude that it is not an aspect of working class Tibetan culture being spread here, but perhaps one from the intelligentsia - viz the lamas. Now they are more than likely to have been vegetarian, in which case one must conclude that this is perhaps the final sentence in a zen koan that makes sense to initiates, but sounds like one hand clapping to us.
Allowing my imagination to run free, I presume the story would go something like this:
A student approached the Master one day and said, "Master, I meditate. I understand the fourfold path. I follow the eight rules. Yet my belly feels empty."
And the Master, raising a finger at a passing working class devotee, said: "Yak now". And the student understand all.
I obviously need more drugs...
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well, its hard to get just the right tone when writing:
you'd need to do a screen play:
Bored looking middle aged woman on side walk, with some NY landmark visible in background (Woolworth building is closest to me right now, but could be any NY landmark) Obviously chewing a large wad of gum: and then You know, sounds something close to yaknow, or jaknow or gaknow (as in geet? = Did you eat?)
But if I am not mistaken, in addition to a exquisitely beautiful Hindu temple, and a Japanese Buddhist temple, we do have a Tibetan Buddhist temple in Queens, so perhaps I am wrong! it could be NY speak is more heavily influenced by Tibet than I realized!
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it could be NY speak is more heavily influenced by Tibet than I realized!
Who knows?
The Dalai Lama (whi is everywhere and everything)
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I like doohickie for something you can't quite put a name on. Jack of all trades master of none is more often used to describe a job with no title.
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enthusiast
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I like doohickie for somethink you can't quite put a name on.
Me too, although people will confuse doohickies with dooverlackies, whatchamacallits, jiggers and even common or garden widgets.
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But, but, it seem so clear. You use the thingamagig, you know, the one with the caboobers that you scrunch together to fix up to doohickie. EVERYBODY knows, you can't make your garden variety widget work without a doohickie. Phsssh (insert rolling-eye towards the sky emoticon here) 
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I think Web-enabled would just about qualify for a Category 2 Meaningless Word.
Just about every software vendor now insists that their software has this impressive feature. It may just mean they can launch a browser from within their application.
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There is a commercial for a credit card that is supposedly Cyberized. The advertisers imply that your card is safe from internet fraud and many other terrible things that happen when you go online. However if you read the fine print at the end of the ad you discover that all Cyberized means is that you can check your balance online. 
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Pooh-Bah
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The 4th category, perhaps, is for Meaningless Words coined by someone who thinks that they do have a meaning - Malapropisms almost (but not quite) come into this category - I suppose Creative Mondegreenism might be a better term.
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The whole of medicine would be up a mucky creek with no paddle if not for Category 2 words! You go to the doctor and say "Doctor, I have this skin rash". She prods you about and announces in a serious voice that ah, yes, you have a skin rash. 'Cept she uses LATIN! Ah, the last refuge of the scoundrel (sorry father )
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#9381
10/31/2000 11:44 PM
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"caboobers" are great! Though I'll have to be careful expressing a liking for them, I think. Especially in the case of rollicking great big caboobers. Isn't "doohickie" a verb, meaning "give a love-bite to"? ..and I've been told that "widget" is the official name for the thingumajig that lives in a beer can (especially Guinness) and injects nitrogen when you open the can, thus providing a "draught beer" effect. Or did I imagine it? Sorry, my standards are very exacting, I know.
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#9382
10/31/2000 11:50 PM
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Brill! "We're evolving towards being fully Web-enabled and Cyberized by the second quarter of the current financial year"  Works for me. Could do with a few more Category 2 financial terms, though!
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#9383
10/31/2000 11:56 PM
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newly made Enthusiasts
Yep, pretty meaningless in my case, right enough!
I like chief cook and bottlewasher for when you don't want to divulge your occupation. Sure there are some good Category 2s in that area - impressive euphemisms for jobs that no-one wants, and no-one wants to admit doing.
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#9384
11/01/2000 12:06 AM
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yaknow, likeGuilty as charged, Helen! I'm inclined to stick in "y'know" as a sort of filler word, too. But it isn't necessarily meaningless, despite the fact that there's no point in saying something the audience knows already. I reckon "you know" actually means " I don't know". Or maybe "you know" is somehow short for "Do you know what I mean?" We're in a strange language land here, because uncertainties become certainties and questions become statements at the drop of a hat - y'know?
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If you want meaningless words for occupations how about consultant. I'm sure there can be legitimate consultants, but mostly, it seems to be a tag stuck onto jobs to make them look more high tech than they really are. My husband informs me that he is a consultant, but that still doesn't mean that I know what it is.
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.... and the Indonesian for whatsit, thingy and all these other words is [insert drum roll here] anu. Something has obviously got lost in translation somewhere.
Bingley
Bingley
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#9387
11/01/2000 10:51 AM
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I think my favourite is "Vice-President in charge of Special Projects".
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"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
"Of fizgigs, flukes and folderol--
"Of frumpery and feazings--
"And where the boondocks can be found--
"And why whangdoodles have no wings."
-Alison Wonderlicht
there must be a gazillion of these; but here are a few:
gadgets: gizmos, doohickeys, thingamabobs, doodads, widgets, whirligigs
knicknacks: gimcracks, trangams, whigmaleeries, fizgigs, tchotchkes, bibelots, folderol
from Mad magazine (in the 50s): veeblefetzer, furshlugginer, squamish (the 43-man variety)
from my friend John: contravivulating, goofaglarbian, furthermoreover
others: pakaloomer, brackerfritch, farshimalt(?)
anyone ever heard these latter three?
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whirligigs--isn't this a real thing? --any one of several small, usually hand crafted toys that have movement but do nothing (a New England egg beater-- it has the crank and gears, but no "whisks" at the end). they are meant as toys to keep children busy. There is an other one that has a crank the drive a small piston clockwise in a X slot routed in a 3 inch block of wood.
Where as a thingamajig, or thingamabog, is a meaningless word? (or rather a noun that does not name a thing!)
and I guess that is one category of words--nouns that are not the names of a person, place or thing, where as i saw meaningless words as the verbal "fluff" added by careless speakers. yaknow?
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#9390
11/01/2000 10:11 PM
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whirligigs--isn't this a real thing? --any one of several small, usually hand crafted toys that have movement but do nothing
Well, I would assume that the term whirligig probably came from this because, if it doesn't do anything, it can usually be considered meaningless.
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Pooh-Bah
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So many mind-stimulating posts, that I do not know where to start.
Names to obscure one's real job - I prefer Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief (which is how I describe MY job!)
Widgets are an example of a meaningless word that has been adopted and now has a real meaning (indeed, it injects somethingor other unnatural into my canned beer - it's enough to make me go back to home brewing! says he in disgust)
Surely words like "thingamajig" aren't nouns that describe nothing - they are describing everything - or, more properly, they have a universality that becomes specific only by reference to their context.
I have a vague feeling in the back of my head that whirligig is an archaic term for the smallish, dancing type of insect that hangs around damp areas and make nuisances of themselves at picnics. One can see how such a name could be transferred to all of the other things that we use it for.
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The 4th category, perhaps, is for Meaningless Words coined by someone who thinks that they do have a meaning.
I like this! But 'Creative Mondegreenism'... hmmm. You mean it sounds meaningful to the person talking, but actually means nothing?
Can anyone think of any examples??
This could be amusing...
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tchotchkes,
I apparently missed this one when I read tsuwm's post the first time. My former employer has a whole line of keychain-watches, bottle-opener-watches, flashlight-watches, picture-frame-watches that they proudly claimed as tchotchkes. They were proud of their meaningless junk!
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#9394
11/11/2000 11:48 AM
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>whirligigs--isn't this a real thing? --any one of several small, usually hand crafted toys that have movement but do nothing< What I used to call a whirligig is what everyone in Australia calls a Hill's Hoist. (Help me, how to explain this without a picture???) An upright metal pole, with three or four 'spokes' protruding at right angles from it at the top. Wires run between these spokes creating a web of washing lines. YOu hang your washing on it and the whole contraption rotates in the breeze. The Hill's Hoist is a sophisticated model with a winch, so that you can lower the lines to hang washing out, then raise them high up to dry. It is touted as an example of Australian design ingenuity, though I am not sure whether it is the overall spider web shape or the winch amendment that is the basis of this ingenuity. PS Have now gone and investigated on the web. What I mean by all the garbage above is apparently a 'rotating clothesline.' http://www.hills.com.au
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For example, this:
>>PS Have now gone and investigated on the web.
The first rule we learn is that English sentences HAVE to have a subject, but I found sentences like this one several times in this Board , usually avoiding " I ". Is there a rule?
Ciao
Emanuela
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Emanuela,
In most cases, when you see a sentence, which should have the subject I, but does not, the speaker (writer) is speaking in an informal manner. It is incorrect, but understood in an informal setting.
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Is there a rule?
Oh yes - it is the Catch22 of English:
All rules have exceptions, including this one.
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In reply to:
All rules have exceptions, including this one.
OK, please supply an example of an exception to the above stated rule.
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All rules have exceptions, including this one.
This is a paradox of the same kind od Russell's paradox or the paradox of the barber - We already found an example with "Hofstader?? law".
In a a village , there is just one barber . The barber is the one who shaves all men that (which?) do not shave themselves.
Question: Who shaves the barber?
Ciao
Emanuela
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It's technically known as ellipsis, and even more technically known as exophoric ellipsis.
Exephoric ellipsis is the omission of words that can be recovered (i.e. worked out) from the non-linguistic situation, and is most often used in informal conversation, e.g. Coming! for I'm coming .
Cataphoric ellipsis is the omission of words that can be recovered from the grammatical context, e.g. We phoned the plumber and asked him to come tomorrow, where the repeated subject (we asked) has been omitted.
Bingley
Bingley
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#9401
11/13/2000 10:57 AM
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Bingley
Exephoric ellipsis? Cataphoric ellipsis?
And here I was prepared to fob off Emanuela with the simple 'explanation' that it's all telegraphese to save us from RSI.
Your answer sounds ever so much more impressive. Are you in competition with tsuwm for the 'most knowledgable about the language' award on AWAD?
cheer
the sunshine warrior
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#9402
11/13/2000 11:27 AM
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shanks,
My opinion, according to the presented evidence, is that tsuwm is our resident word expert, and that sweet Mr.
B. is our language expert. And, if we can consider these two as our language doctors, then we have a paradox.
Emanuela, I think I might have the answer to your paradox.
Will send private to check.
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#9403
11/13/2000 12:37 PM
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Jackie
Good points. And good doctors too.
I think I too may have the answer to Emanuela's conundrum. Will send private to you to check! (Maybe we can work up a Chinese Whispers chain?)
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Question: Who shaves the barber?
Ok shanks, I don't know about the answer, but I'll chinese whisper my attempt to you and perhaps we'll get a number of variants (or never know what we all thought...!)
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>>whigmaleeries, fizgigs, tchotchkes, bibelots, folderol
allô tsuwm. Bibelot is actually a French word used to describe a small decorative object. You know, the kind usually accumulated over the years, little statuettes, souvenirs et al. It is quite specific in its meaning.
Emanuela, the barber can be a woman and she can shave herself. (All right guys, don't all say "eewww yuck" at the same time...I meant her legs)
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I feel embarassed , since, yes, of course, you can be right, but I was not expecting an answer...
Since the paradox of the barber (thinking of the barber as a man) is not just a joke, but is one of examples of self-referring sentences from which raised the modern mathematical logic-I can be wrong or at least imprecise, I don't know the subject well .
I could restate the problem in this way :
" This sentence is false"
Question : Is the the above question true or false?
Ciao
Emanuela
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#9407
11/14/2000 10:02 AM
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This sentence is falseYes, emanuela, my first thought was that the barber paradox was unanswerable. But we didn't allow for the fact that Russell's example was hampered by the time of writing, eh? Thinks: 'eh' is meaningless, but speaks volumes!
Thinks 2: why would the French 'hein' work better here?? If I recall correctly, Hofstadter (in Godel, Escher, Bach) suggested such self-referential statements could be answered by the invented word "mu" - which effectively unasks the question. My personal opinion is that blowing a raspberry is more effective - or just laughing, of course. Zen again... Fisk
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