Joke Thread 5
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Yorkieguy
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Doug B
Shy Tot
Yorkieguy
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I expected to see a small old Stanley plane on his head when I scrolled down
Yorkieguy
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Yes, this is a joke thread and this post isn't a joke, but at least it's light-hearted, so let's not be too pedantic.
Another phenomenon of words in the English language I'm rather fond of, which everyone will know, but may not know what the term for them is, are ‘Reduplicative Compounds’ - rhyming double words or 'ricochet words'. This was was covered in an exhaustive study (in English!) by a Swede, Nils Thun, more than sixty years ago in 1963 in a book entitled "Reduplicative Words in English".
He'd collected about 2,000 such words, some of which are obsolete or dialects, and others are simply repeated words such as "goody-goody". Others consist of words of more than simply two rhyming syllables, such as razzmatazz. Many such words are identical except for the first letter, such as: hanky-panky, willy-nilly, rumpy-pumpy, higgeldy-piggeldy, criss-cross, des-res, splish-splash. Example which rhyme but have other letter changes are trolley-dolly, chick-flick, share-ware, and sneak-peek (a preview of a film).
Most start with a consonant - often H, but some start with a vowel, such as argy-bargy. In others, there is a change of internal vowel as in tick-tock, or zig-zag. Some are so new that they've yet to enter the dictionary, such as "bobby lobby" (police campaigners), and "flak shack" (old soldiers' rest home).
There's a big class of reduplicated compounds such as: airy-fairy, art(s)y-fart(s)y, fuddy-duddy, hanky-panky, hoity-toity, hurly-burly, itsy-bitsy, loosey-goosey, namby-pamby, okey-dokey, roly-poly, creepy-crawly, touchy-feely teeny-weeny, willy-nilly and wishy-washy. Others only reduplicate the -y element, like hunky-dory, topsy-turvy, and upsy-daisy.
'He was an airy-fairy, arty-farty, fuddy-duddy playing hanky-panky while acting hoity-toity and engaging in hurly-burly with an itsy-bitsy woman on the side. Oh, she might have seemed loosey-goosey or namby-pamby, but in fact she was okey-dokey with his roly-poly features, despite his teeny-weeny appetite and his willy-nilly manner. Yes, she was quite hunky-dory with all those topsy-turvy plans, the upsy-daisy business ventures, the artsy-craftsy weekends, the creepy-crawly pets, and – my goodness! – those touchy-feely moods he used to swing'.
There are other examples linked by ‘and’, such as "odds and sods", and some are based on alliteration (word strings in which words start with the same letter, such as plug and play, and "around the rock the ragged rascal ran").
A bit more about it at the link below. (334 pages of examples in fact - perhaps the most irritating of which to my ears is: 'it is what it is'):
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:English_reduplications
This phenomenon isn't unique to English, and occurs in most other languages.
Hope that's of interest and maybe some 'easy-peasy lemon squeezy' amusement!
David.
John Brown
Freeloading Social media influenza
Why the braces () ?
Yorkieguy
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MorrisWoodman12
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To keep his trousers up!
Yorkieguy
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Yorkieguy
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stuart little
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Great minds think alike - this Guy's been on my mind since 'Independence Day'!
IMHO, HM should send at least 3 'very silly peoples' to the Tower, & in the words of Miranda Richardson:- "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!"
stuart little
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stuart little
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What braces? Oh! It's another typo. Brackets - it's maths!
John Brown
Freeloading Social media influenza
No, that's me having a brain fart, I can't blame it on a typo or vindictive text.What braces? Oh! It's another typo. Brackets - it's maths!
My mistake.
Yorkieguy
Established Member
10/10!
Cozzer
Established Member
Don't encourage him Yorkie
Don't worry.
The nurse will wake him up tomorrow and he won't remember a thing anyway....
That’s only 1, a bit unfair10/10!
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