this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2024
965 points (98.2% liked)

Greentext

4306 readers
715 users here now

This is a place to share greentexts and witness the confounding life of Anon. If you're new to the Greentext community, think of it as a sort of zoo with Anon as the main attraction.

Be warned:

If you find yourself getting angry (or god forbid, agreeing) with something Anon has said, you might be doing it wrong.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Early_To_Risa@sh.itjust.works
965
Anon makes up a word (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 3 months ago by Early_To_Risa@sh.itjust.works to c/greentext@sh.itjust.works
96 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] Phoeniqz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

According to wikipedia:

The term gobbledygook was coined by Maury Maverick, a former congressman from Texas and former mayor of San Antonio.[19] When Maverick was chairman of the Smaller War Plants Corporation during World War II, he sent a memorandum that said: "Be short and use plain English. ... Stay off gobbledygook language."[20][21] Maverick defined gobbledygook as "talk or writing which is long, pompous, vague, involved, usually with Latinized words." The allusion was to a turkey, "always gobbledygobbling and strutting with ridiculous pomposity."

Please do a better research next time before writing an reply about some other word and making up causations where there are just correlations. Just because a word contains "gook" does not mean it's related to the word "gook"

[โ€“] SreudianFlip@sh.itjust.works -3 points 3 months ago

I actually remain unconvinced by the non-scholarly sources people are providing, authoritatively claiming etymology on scant evidence, and believe they are relying on the self-reported motives of Maverick.

'Gook' is only generally used as a slur, and other uses are obsolete by a century or extremely regional and rare. In 1944 the slur was the predominant usage, particularly around Maverick.

Do you have a more authoritative source?