In his angry objection to the court ’s decision on the Defense of Marriage Act on Wednesday , Justice Scalia convey a specific kind of derision through his usance of several conversational expressions . He talked of the court ’s restlessness to " blurt out out " its judgment and said that the bulk ’s account " takes real brass . " With source to the pickings up of the takings of brave matrimony in the first place , he enjoin that " some might reason out that this loaf could have used a while longer in the oven . " He accuses the majority of having an unfitness to reject painting the other side as monster , and laments that with a " too defective . " The use of such casual , folksy expressions enhances the attitude of despite by implying , " I wo n’t even deign to use my fancy civilize voice ; that ’s how little I think of this . "
The most noticeable of these facial expression was " argle bargle , " a terminal figure he used to describe the logical thinking behind the legal age belief . AtVisual Thesaurus , Ben Zimmer render the background on the roots of " argle bargle " in Scottish rhyme slang . It came from a playful transformation of " argue " and have in mind a tussle or spirited dispute . It is also used to mean nonsense , which is how Scalia practice it here .
Argle bargle make use of reduplication , which in some voice communication is a grammatical summons that can indicate things like relative majority or verbal look . In English , we would n’t exactly call anadiplosis a well-formed mark — it is n’t used in a very productive or rule - govern way , but there is a pretty uniform association between reduplicated forms and a certain set of significance . Reduplication can call for copying of whole syllables ( mama ) , rhymes ( teeny weeny ) , or changing vowels within syllables ( know as ablaut anadiplosis : hodgepodge ) . Here are five related to significance conveyed by reduplication . ( There is variance on whether these terms should be hyphenate or not . I ’m going to leave them all unhyphenated for the interest of consistency . )
1. Babyish, small, cute
There is a lot of reduplication in baby talk : mama , bye bye , boo boo , pee pee . This is belike how reduplication gets more in the main tie in with the mind of modest or cute ( teeny weeny , itsy bitsy , fuzzy wuzzy , lovey dovey ) . you could habituate reduplicated forms with the intention of invoking " babyish " in a friendly way , but you could also use it to incriminate childishness .
2. Scattered, inconsistent
Reduplicated form can also convey disorderly movement or grouping , and by elongation , recklessness : zig zag , pell mell , higgledy piggledy , topsy turvy , riffraff , oddments , hodgepodge , willy nilly , helter skelter , harum scarum .
3. Frivolous, shallow
Bringing together the implications of childishness and scatteredness is a chemical group of term used to call thing frivolous , shallow , wispy or airheaded : hippy dippy , artsy fartsy , wishy washy , airy fairy , namby pamby , chit confabulation , dilly dally , tutti frutti . Razzle dazzle can be used to incriminate something disgustingly showy , but it can also have a positive meaning — excitingly showy !
4. Nonsense
All the other meanings come together here . What is talk that is infantile , break up , inconsistent , frivolous and shallow ? Nonsense . In other words , hocus pocus , mumbo jumbo , claptrap , jibber jabber , and , of class , argle bargle .
5. To diminish, take away power
If the negative implications of anadiplosis can be used to call thing inconsequent and unaccented , they can also be used to take the raciness out of threatening thing , to take some power aside from those who would use ridicule against you .
So , Justice Scalia , you may have a hoity toity degree from a fancy schmancy schooling , but your blowing a gasket over certain kinds of hanky panky just makes you an former fuddy duddy .
