Words That Make Me Smile

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By Sukanto Debnath

“Also, make a note of the word gobbledegook. I like it. I want to use it more often in conversation.” General Melchett, Blackadder.

At home or abroad, words bounce and jumble around us every day. Travel involves grappling with new languages and struggling to pronounce unfamiliar words. We need words for survival, for navigating through bureaucracy and for expressing our deepest emotions.

But, as Melchett in the brilliant satire Blackadder noted, we can enjoy words on their own.

Gobbledegook, like skidaddle, pompous and wibble are good, clean fun. Mtoto (child) and watoto (children) in Swahili transport me back to my paediatric placement on the edge of the Serengeti. Vraisonblablement (probably) represents the blabbering, blathering feeling of indecipherable doom that used to descend on me during conversations when I first moved to France.

Gerund symbolises the excitement of grammar, while suspiciously reminding me of germs and gerbils. Runt gets its point across. And antidisestablishmentarianism gives my facial muscles a good workout.

Aberystwyth, Skegness and Condom put those places on the map. As does Timbuktu.

A load of codswallop? Maybe. But it’s cheap fun, devoid of skulduggery. Don’t be cantankerous – join the shenanigans and add some to the list.

Blackadder photo courtesy of wallpaper from the BBC.