It probably comes from the Portugues word "palavra" (or the Spanish: "palabra"). Palaver: Another word with a West African origin, this word meaning straight nonsense comes from a pidgin used by traders centuries ago. (Still, I wouldn't mind knowing where exactly in West Africa Mumbo-Jumbo comes from, and what he means or meant to people there.) I tend to think not, since the God Mumbo-Jumbo is apparently "a god, hobgoblin or boogie man." One doesn't worship these types of Gods, one fears them. Out of cultural sensitivity, one wonders if all this appropriation of "mumbo jumbo" might actually be offensive to some west Africans. 165 The moon was above all constraint of sorcery's mumbo-jumbo. 328 Sebastian.swore loudly that nothing would induce him to take part in the mumbo-jumbo of the imminent Coronation. 238 We.went to vespers in the old church, where we saw a good deal of mumbo-jumbo by red, purple, and yellow priests.
Obscure or meaningless language or ritual jargon intended to impress or mystify nonsense.ġ870 L. In contemporary usage, it seems to be more or less synonymous with "hocus pocus," and is often used to describe the seeming fakery of religious or quasi-religious rituals: The African-American novelist Ishmael Reed played with this word in his postmodern novel Mumbo-Jumbo. Presumably it came into English through the slave trade. Mumbo-jumbo comes from West African religion, where it is the name of a God. Mumbo-Jumbo: Interesting how a number of words meaning 'nonsense' have an ethnic or non-English etymology. Also, if we were interested in blogging, we might also add "snark," which is a new species: snotty, arch, derision. They are words that describe specific kinds of rhetorical sleights-of-hand - flattering or deceiving - and as such they are part of Desani's universe of nonsense. Let's have a closer look at some of the words in bold, shall we? We might also add words like "hocus-pocus" and "blarney," neither of which mean "nonsense," strictly speaking. Let's start with the entry for "nonsense":Ībsurdity, babble, balderdash, baloney, bananas, blather, bombast, BS, bull, bunk, claptrap, craziness, drivel, fatuity, flightiness, folly, foolishness, fun, gab, gas, gibberish, giddiness, gobbledygook, hogwash, hooey, hot air, imprudence, inanity, irrationality, jazz, jest, jive, joke, ludicrousness, madness, mumbo jumbo, palaver, poppycock, prattle, pretense, ranting, rashness, rot, rubbish, scrawl, scribble, senselessness, silliness, soft soap, stupidity, thoughtlessness, trash, tripe, twaddle So today I thought I would briefly celebrate colorful words for "nonsense," with a mini-tour. Hatterr, and Desani seems to use them all - often with reference to the speeches of various fake Holy Men who show up in the novel. The words for nonsense have been in my head lately partly because I've been teaching All About H. And we need every single one, to truly and precisely describe all the different genres of the useless stuff people say. The eskimos have a million words - something like that - for "snow." We, down in the melted world of "hot air," "hot water," and HOTlanta, have a million words for nonsense.
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