Reduplicatives

Reduplicatives, sometimes called "echo words," or "echo phrases" are formulations such as hobnob, pell-mell, herky-jerky, hoity-toity, itsy-bitsy, niminy-piminy.

In English, there are two principal classes of reduplicatives. Category one consists of rhymes such as hodge-podge, willy-nilly, helter-skelter, kowtow, harum-scarum, jeepers-creepers, okey-dokey, heebie-jeebie, gang-bang, hocus-pocus (reputed to derive from the words of the Latin mass:  hoc est corpus meum);  the second category contains words that are formed by ablaut or vowel shift, such as ping-pong, shilly-shally, zig-zag, bibble-babble, pitter-patter, splish-splash, flim-flam.

There are also some lovely oddities that resist classification: dipsy-doodle, topsy-turvey, hunky-dory, tilly-valley, and, at the outer limit, hullabaloo.

Of the hundreds (perhaps thousands) of reduplicatives, almost all are comprised of one or two syllables, but there are occasional threes: higgledy-piggledy, jiggery-pokery. To the best of my knowledge, there are no four-syllable reduplicatives. 

Many are diminutives or are dismissive: hanky-panky, namby-pamby, claptrap, mumbo-jumbo.

The language continues to generate reduplicatives. Some now common reduplicatives were unknown to my youth: Maui-wowie, boob-tube, creature-feature (a horror movie), fender-bender, gender-bender, chick-flick, AC-DC, fag-hag, chop-shop (a place where stolen cars are cut into parts), brain-drain, artsy-fartsy.

But reduplicatives are as old as the language. Shakespeare, who was fond of reduplicatives, used them not just for comic effect, but at critical dramatic moments. Some well-known examples: the weird sisters in Macbeth will meet again "When the hurly-burly's done,/ When the battle's lost and won." "Hurly-burly" signals the sisters' contempt for human effort. In Hamlet, Claudius admits that it was a mistake to bury Polonius in secret haste: "we have done but greenly/ In hugger-mugger to inter him."  The Catholic Hotspur (in The First Part of King Henry the Fourth) complains that the great pagan magician Glendower speaks "such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff/ As puts me from my faith."  A less famous but still wonderful reduplicative appears in All's Well That Ends Well, where the braggart soldier Parolles argues in purple pentameters that his young master Bertram should abandon his bride and go the wars:  "He wears his honor in a box unseen,/ That hugs his kicky-wicky here at home,/Spending his manly marrow in her arms,/ Which should sustain the bound and high curvet/ Of Mar's fiery steed."  The rare "kicky-wicky," which some derive from French quelque chose, is brutally insulting.         

Three men come into a restaurant: one is from Walla-Walla, one from Pago-Pago, and one from Ryukyu. They order cous-cous, mahi-mahi, and a kiwi salad. They ask the mu-mu clad waitress (who suffers from beri-beri) about the quality of the food. In some versions of this edifying story, she replies, "So-so."  What else might she have said?

Comments

[Ohu Gon]

I suppose the waitress (who is, if you wish to be correct, clad in a mu`umu`u, not a mu-mu), could have said, "comme si, comme ça."