My grandmother, known to all as Mush, was a formidable woman. She was a member of the Scottish Prohibition Party in the 1920s, mostly to gather ammunition to tell her husband (known universally as Pop) exactly where he was going wrong.
My clearest memory of Mush is being bounced robustly on her knee, singing along to: “Vote, vote, vote for Neddy Scrymgeour, he’s the man tae gie ye ham and eggs”. To this day, in fear of repercussion from beyond the grave, I vote for any politician who promises these things.
Mush brought up her five boys, my father and uncles, to be teetotal. Though only two (my father being one) kept the faith.
Isn’t teetotal a funny word.
For years I thought it was “teatotal”: the strongest drink an adherent would take was tea. But teetotal has nothing to do with a cuppa, it is reduplication.
This is the practice of repeating a word, or element of a word, to add emphasis. Teetotal is saying “capital T, total”.
Reduplication doesn’t have to be exact repetition, it can be part of a word repeated with a slight alteration. The intention is to add emphasis: A-OK, razzle-dazzle, zig-zag.
Flip-flop means the same as flip, the reduplication just adds a little to the concept.
Children are taught to speak using reduplication. They eat din-din, which goes into their tum-tum, and they wave bye-bye. But it never stops. Adults ask: “Are you friends-friends, or just Facebook-friends?” Chocolate is described as bad for a diet, but not “BAD-bad” like the triple monster-burgers with extra cheese that killed Elvis.
Comedian Mickey Flanagan is famous for a routine in which he entertainingly explains the difference between popping out, going out and being out-out”.
Reduplication is more common in other languages. It adds to or multiplies meanings. In Samoan “savali” is used for one person walking, while “savavali” is the term when more than one person is walking. Australian place names have lots of examples. Wagga Wagga means “place of many crows”. Gumly Gumly is “place of many frogs”. You can see the logic.
Reduplication in English is, to my eye, sometimes strange. I might use the odd example in speech, though doubt I’d use it in formal writing.
But I am growing tired of a form of reduplication that seems to be spreading like wildfire.
Too many things are described as super-good. People describe themselves as super-happy, but don’t look it. Or claim some vacant-looking youth warbling his way through a pop song is super-awesome.
Reduplication in this form is super-bad.
Word of the week
Transhumance (noun)
Seasonal movement of livestock between mountain and lowland pastures. EG: “Has there been a lot of cattle migration recently? I keep hearing transhumance mentioned on the news.”
Read the latest Oh my word! every Saturday in The Courier. Contact me at sfinan@dctmedia.co.uk
