2012年1月12日 星期四

mumbo-jumbo, gibberish,double dutch, crisscross


jumbo (ˈdʒʌmbəʊPronunciation for jumboPronunciation for jumbo)

Definitions

noun

  1. informal
    1. a very large person or thing
    2. ((as modifier) a jumbo box of detergent
  2. See jumbo jet

    noun

    1. informal a type of large jet-propelled airliner that carries several hundred passengers

Word Origin

C19: after the name of a famous elephant exhibited by P. T. Barnum, from Swahili jumbe chief
Jumbo

You have also written that poetry represents "the
mysteries of the irrational perceived through rational words. "
But many feel that the "irrational" has little place in an age
when the exact knowledge of science has begun to plumb the most
profound mysteries of existence. Do you agree?


This appearance is very deceptive. It is a journalistic
illusion. In point of fact, the greater one's science, the
deeper the sense of mystery. Moreover, I don't believe that any
science today has pierced any mystery. We, as newspaper
readers, are inclined to call "science" the cleverness of an
electrician or a psychiatrist's mumbo jumbo. This, at best, is
applied science, and one of the characteristics of applied
science is that yesterday's neutron or today's truth dies
tomorrow. But even in a better sense of "science"-- as the
study of visible and palpable nature, or the poetry of pure
mathematics and pure philosophy-- the situation remains as
hopeless as ever. We shall never know the origin of life, or
the meaning of life, or the nature of space and time, or the
nature of nature, or the nature of thought.

double dutch
1. Language that cannot be understood, gibberish, as in They might have been speaking double Dutch, for all I understood. This usage dates from the 1870s (an earlier version, however, had it as high Dutch) and is heard less often today than the synonym double talk.
2. A game of jump rope in which players jump over two ropes swung in a crisscross fashion.


mum·bo jum·bo or mum·bo-jum·bo (mŭm'bō-jŭm') pronunciation
n., pl., -bos, or -bos.
  1. Unintelligible or incomprehensible language; gibberish.
  2. Language or ritualistic activity intended to confuse.
  3. A complicated or obscure ritual.
  4. An object believed to have supernatural powers; a fetish.

[Perhaps of Mandingo origin .]


mumbo jumbo (ˈmʌmbəʊPronunciation for mumbo jumbo)

Definitions

noun

Word forms: plural, mumbo jumbos
  1. foolish religious reverence, ritual, or incantation
  2. meaningless or unnecessarily complicated language
  3. an object of superstitious awe or reverence

Word Origin

C18: probably from Mandingo mama dyumbo, name of a tribal god

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