"Gibberish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he said, as he put on his great coat, "it is a curious fact that, with all his incredulity, he is exceedingly superstitious. You can hardly believe how troubled he is about some gibberish of that old hag that sets charms for lame horses, etc. I'm not at all sure but that she set charms in the other way for my ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... appeared frightened, and for some time said nothing, but only stared at me. At length, recovering herself, she exclaimed, in an angry tone, "Why do you talk to me in that manner, and in that gibberish? I don't understand a word ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow
... not understand your gibberish, my good man: but that you are unrefined and uneducated I can easily see, and I command you to quit my ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... pair of mustachios in burnt cork, even when there was none to see. Children are even content to forego what we call the realities, and prefer the shadow to the substance. When they might be speaking intelligibly together, they chatter senseless gibberish by the hour, and are quite happy because they are making believe to speak French. I have said already how even the imperious appetite of hunger suffers itself to be gulled and led by the nose with the fag end of an old song. ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of course, Pierre understood not a word. He could only smile and stroke the little fair head. When he spoke to her in his own language the child gazed at him in wide-eyed wonder, and at last laughed gleefully and began to pat his face, talking a lot of baby gibberish, such as she imagined Pierre was addressing ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... entire control for a matter of five nights. But they gave me a new idea of Fox, those two or three weird hours that night. It was as if I had never seen him before. The attacks grew more virulent as the night advanced. He groaned and raved, and said things—oh, the most astounding things in gibberish that upset one's nerves and everything else. At the height he sang hymns, and then, as the fits passed, relapsed into incredible clear-headedness. It gave me, I say, a new idea of Fox. It was as if, for all the time I had known him, he had been playing ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... replied, testily. 'Tell me how far he's off, instead of giving me your gibberish. Is he a two days' journey away? or a three? ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... it. It sounded, however, so quite like a dictum which she herself would have liked to make, that she cross-questioned Sylvia afterwards as to its meaning; but Sylvia lied fluently, asserting that it was just some of Professor Kennedy's mathematical gibberish which had ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... bull; Irishism^, Hibernicism^; slipslop^; anticlimax, bathos; sophism &c 477. farce, galimathias^, amphigouri^, rhapsody; farrago &c (disorder) 59; betise [Fr.]; extravagance, romance; sciamachy^. sell, pun, verbal quibble, macaronic^. jargon, fustian, twaddle, gibberish &c (no meaning) 517; exaggeration &c 549; moonshine, stuff; mare's nest, quibble, self- delusion. vagary, tomfoolery, poppycock, mummery, monkey trick, boutade [Fr.], escapade. V. play the fool &c 499; talk nonsense, parler a tort et a travess [Fr.]; battre ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... it," quoth Robin Hood testily, "an ye make sport of me by pattering such gibberish, it will be ill for you all, I tell you. I have the best part of a mind to crack the heads of all four of you, and would do so, too, but for the sweet Malmsey ye have given me. Brother, pass the pottle lest it ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... me. Latin was my favorite study, and it seemed sacrilege to believe this gibberish to belong ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... expression belong to the pure spirit of the language, and when employed impart to it much dignity and beauty; but there is no standard of orthography, nor any grammar, and but few rules of universal application. Every Siamese writer spells to please himself, and the purism of one is the slang or gibberish of another. ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... 'Shall I tell you what it is, my good woman?' says the Poknees. 'I would thank you, sir,' says I, 'for 'tis often we are asked about it.' 'Well, then,' says the Poknees, 'it is no language at all, merely a made-up gibberish.' 'Oh, bless your wisdom,' says I, with a curtsey, 'you can tell us what our language is without understanding it!' Another time we meet a parson. 'Good woman,' says he, 'what's that you are talking? Is it broken language?' 'Of course, your reverence,' says I, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... fields to the old tumble-down house on the next road, where the new family lived. The children were at play in the yard—seven in all, and none of them larger than Hope—but at sight of her they came forward hand in hand, jabbering such queer gibberish that Peace ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... by means of a sling, not of a bow; like the Hermit, too, he has his peculiar phrases of compotation, the sign and countersign being Passelodion and Berafriend. One can scarce conceive what humour our ancestors found in this species of gibberish; but "I warrant it proved ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... with tongues' (glossolalhia), which was the favourite exhibition of religious enthusiasm at Corinth. (On this subject Prof. Lake's excursus is the most instructive discussion that has yet appeared. The 'Testament of Job' and the magical papyri show that gibberish uttered in a state of spiritual excitement was supposed to be the language of angels and spirits, understood by them and acting upon them as a charm.) He urges his converts to do all things 'decently ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... The two medical men, whose interests were common—for the profession is very close and regardful of its rights and privileges—consulted, communicating by signs and gibberish not understanded of the people. Accompanied by a few of the elders of the camp, they went to Yan-coo's surgery, took out the death-bone, and with much ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... to get one of those big snakes is to cover his head with a bag, and then he'll crawl in himself to get into the dark, which is a serpent's idea of safety. The more you prod 'em the faster they'll crawl, and that was the time when Merritt always made passes with his hands and muttered gibberish to impress the spectators. He started in according to programme as soon as he located the snake, which was half hidden among a lot of casks. The snake carried out his part and struck at the opened bag which Merritt held out to him, but instead of sticking his head in he grabbed it with his teeth, ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... that contributed to the formation of taste and character. My familiar use of language that sounded pedantic because I got it from books, my frequent references to characters I had known in print, were gibberish and vanity of vanities to my new associates. My very plays were unintelligible to girls who had never heard of William Wallace, and Robert Bruce, and Thaddeus of Warsaw, or read, on Sunday afternoons, of Tobias and the Angel, Judith and Holofernes, and Christiana ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... who appeal to it will be hanged in one rope. The good Talbot will shower commissions on his countrymen, and will cut the throats of the English. These verses, which were in no respect above the ordinary standard of street poetry, had for burden some gibberish which was said to have been used as a watchword by the insurgents of Ulster in 1641. The verses and the tune caught the fancy of the nation. From one end of England to the other all classes were constantly singing this idle ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1875 • Various
... under our feet and call it vulgar. Cobbett is coarse enough, but he is not vulgar. He does not belong to the herd. Nothing real, nothing original, can be vulgar; but I should think an imitator of Cobbett a vulgar man. Emery's Yorkshireman is vulgar, because he is a Yorkshireman. It is the cant and gibberish, the cunning and low life of a particular district; it has 'a stamp exclusive and provincial.' He might 'gabble most brutishly' and yet not fall under the letter of the definition; but 'his speech bewrayeth him,' his dialect (like the jargon ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... silver-plated harness. How much nicer he is than a gabbling Italian, or a Frenchman who compliments you one minute and behaves like a brute the next! It does my soul good to see the clean, rosy faces, and hear good English instead of gibberish.' ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... again said lightly, "any American—any, that is, of the world—who has a colonial background for his family, has thought, probably, very much the same sort of things. Of course it would be all Greek or gibberish to the new people." ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... There stood the occupant,[59] holding in his hands one of the Chapel Bibles, while before him on the table were placed the images, to which he appeared to be reading, but in reality was vociferating all kinds of senseless gibberish. "What is the meaning of this noise?" inquired the tutor in great anger. "Propagating the Gospel among the Indians, Sir," replied the ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... which is commonly the best where there is the most need of it, surprise the audience, and cast a mist upon their understandings; not unlike the cunning of a juggler, who is always staring us in the face, and over-whelming us with gibberish, only that he may gain the opportunity of making the cleaner conveyance of his trick. But these false beauties of the stage are no more lasting than a rainbow; when the actor ceases to shine upon them, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... that his mind was impaired by disease; and thrusting the book into the hands of his wife he entreated her to read it at once. He watched her breathlessly, and when she exclaimed, "I don't know what this means; it is gibberish," Jerrold exclaimed, "Thank God, I am ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... was that he had come back as soft-headed as he went, and try as we might, we couldn't get anything reasonable out of him. He talked a lot of gibberish about keelhauling and walking the plank and crimson murders—things which a decent sailor should know nothing about, so that it seemed to me that for all his manners captain had been more of a pirate than a gentleman ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... great Latin writers, to Terence and Lucretius, to Cicero and Caesar, to Tacitus and Quintilian, the noblest compositions of Ambrose and Gregory would have seemed to be, not merely bad writing, but senseless gibberish, [493] The diction of our Book of Common Prayer, on the other hand, has directly or indirectly contributed to form the diction of almost every great English writer, and has extorted the admiration of the most accomplished infidels and of the most accomplished nonconformists, of such ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... said Pantagruel. "What do you want, and what is your name?" The man answered him in German, gibberish, Italian, English, Basque, Lantern-language, Dutch, Spanish, Danish, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... reverse of what it is in the case of those who view the Indian at a distance and with no precise knowledge of any of his characteristics. In the estimation of such persons the Indian's vices greatly outweigh his virtues; his language is a gibberish, his methods of war cowardly, his ideas of ...
— Indian Linguistic Families Of America, North Of Mexico • John Wesley Powell
... with you! In they burnt on me, his tales, Much as when madhouse-inmates crowd around, Make captive any visitor and scream All sorts of stories of their keeper—he's Both dwarf and giant, vulture, wolf, dog, cat, Serpent and scorpion, yet man all the same; Sane people soon see through the gibberish! I just made out, you somehow lived somewhere A life of shame—I can't distinguish more— Married or single—how, don't matter much: Shame which himself had caused—that point was clear, That fact confessed—that thing to hold and keep. Oh, and he added some absurdity —That you were ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... with a flood of speech to tell me how near he was to his end, with a number of outlandish, magical words such as "the great Magisterium," "the Red Lion," "the Red Tincture," and the like, till meseemed my brain reeled with the sinful gibberish; notwithstanding, to this day I believe that in all truth he was nigh attaining his purpose; and he might have done so at last were it not that, a short space after this, he was choked by the vapor from an alembic ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... presumes, in imitation of his betters, to write Philomath after his name, and whose whole extent of literary reputation is not more than two or three beggarly townlands, whom, by the way, he is inoculating successfully wid his own ripe and flourishing ignorance. No, sir; nor like Gusty Gibberish, or (as he has been most facetiously christened by his Reverence, Father O'Flaherty) Demosthenes M'Gosther, inasmuch as he is distinguished for an aisy and prodigal superfluity of mere words, unsustained ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Their charms were repeated sometimes in their own language and sometimes in gibberish. When the Scotch witches wanted to fly away to their "Witches' Sabbath," they straddled a broom-handle, a corn stalk, a straw, or a rush, and cried out "Horse and hattock, in the Devil's name!" and immediately ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... a county fair near here!" exclaimed Rebecca. "But will ye listen to the gibberish ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... said, "to write under the dictation of a great merchant, conducting a vast correspondence by which thousands of pounds change hands in due course of post. And it's another thing to take down the gibberish of a maundering mad monster who ought to be kept in a cage. Your good father, Valeria, would never have ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... the year. One of these tribes calls itself by the noble name of Stanley, of which I have nothing particular to say; but the other is distinguished by an appellative somewhat remarkable. — As far as their harsh gibberish can be understood, they seem to say that the name of their clan is Curleople; now the termination of this word is apparently Grecian: and as Mezeray and the gravest historians all agree that these ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... has been receiving information second-hand about their past and future, when a scratching, scraping, boring noise on the outside of their bark roof temporarily disturbed their slumbers. Dol called out noisily, and, as was the way of that youngster on sundry occasions, talked some gibberish in his ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... altogether; sitting upon the floor cross-legged in a state of torpor. They never heeded us in the least, scarcely looking conscious of our presence, while Mehevi seated us upon the mats, and Kory-Kory gave utterance to some unintelligible gibberish. ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... to share Miss Keene's sentiments; "and he's so good to those outlandish niggers in the crew. I don't see how the captain could get on with the crew without him; he's the only one who can talk their gibberish and keep them quiet. I've seen him myself quietly drop down among them when they were wrangling. In my opinion," continued the young fellow, lowering his voice somewhat ostentatiously, "you'll find out ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... him,' continued Trottman, 'to afford you a sample of his gibberish; you may then examine what degree of instruction you suppose may be obtained from a heterogeneous topsy-turvy mass ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... turned him out o' meeting for gitting drunk and swearing—the dear good man!—but I do wish, for gracious sake, I could only jest change places with 'em—ef jest for five minutes—and I reckon as how they'd be glad to quit their gibberish, and talk like Christian folks, once in thar sneaking lives! Thar, they're done now, I do hope to all marcy's sake! and I reckons as how we'll soon have ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... Rumors of cannibalism preceded them, and they were believed to be less than human in form and mind. A Finn might have partly understood their talk, but, to the people they attacked, their speech was gibberish. ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... fellows what be called the foremast in his language, and what d'ye think he said? Why, I'm blowed if he didn't call it a 'Mar-darty-marng' (and that's the only bit of French I know); but how is it possible to work a ship in such gibberish?" ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... think, answers your question better than I could, but you wouldn't understand even his words, I fancy. There they are in the Greek," he opened a Testament and showed her a passage. "I believe you would think the English almost as great gibberish as this looks to you in its ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... a-saying?" demanded Barringford, after listening to the chant. "I never heard sech gibberish in ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... heretics much wiser, who are continually sticking amen to the end of your prayers, little knowing when you do so that you are consigning yourselves to the repose of Buddh? Oh, what hearty laughs our missionaries have had when comparing the eternally sounding Eastern gibberish of Omani batsikhom, Omani batsikhom, and the Ave Maria and Amen Jesus of our ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... everything nice that any one uninitiated may have, and beat them if it is not granted, or even strangle and kill people. They do not get into trouble for this, because it is thought that they do not know better. Sometimes they carry on the pretence of talking gibberish, and behaving as if they had returned from the spirit-world. After this they are known by another name, peculiar to those who have 'died Ndembo.' . . . We hear of the custom far along on the upper river, as well as in the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... Empiricis), written probably near the end of the fourth century. This work contains, amongst other things, a number of word-charms, or superstitious cure-formulas, that were, till lately, regarded—like Cato's word-cure for fractures of the bones—as mere unmeaning gibberish. Joseph Grimm and M. Pictet, however, think that they have found in these word-charms of Marcellus, specimens of the Gaulish or Celtic language several centuries older than any that were previously ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... very low in the human scale and not far above the ape. Sir Lucien usually spoke to Sin Sin Wa in English, and the other replied in that weird jargon known as "pidgin." But the silly Sin Wa who murmured gibberish and the Sin Sin Wa who could converse upon many and curious subjects in his own language were two different beings—as Sir Lucien was aware. Now, as the one-eyed Chinaman resumed his seat and the one-eyed raven sank into slumber, Pyne suddenly spoke in Chinese, a tongue which he understood ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... and asked a hundred questions, perpetually taking snuff the while—Was I the servitore? When did we arrive? Had we gone to Roma? All this I myself did not know, and really I could not understand his gibberish. "Parlez-vous francais?" I asked him at last in my distress. He shook his big head, and I was very glad, for neither did I speak French. But it was of no use, he had taken me in hand, and went on asking ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... such mingle-mangle talk," ordered Mr. Meredith, fretfully. "Is 't not enough to have French gibberish in the world, without—" ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... pretending that they are more than conventional signs for Chinese sounds unknown to our languages. It was certainly possible to transcribe not only names but Sanskrit prayers and formulae in Chinese characters, and though many writers sneer at the gibberish chanted by Buddhist priests yet I doubt if this ecclesiastical pronunciation, which has changed with that of the spoken language, is further removed from its original than the Latin of Oxford from ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... British port of the East, and here he decided to land. No sooner had the travelers touched the dock, than they were surrounded by a yelling, jostling crowd of Chinese coolies, all shouting in an outlandish gibberish for the privilege of carrying the Barbarians' baggage. A group gathered round Mackay, and in their eagerness began hammering each other with bamboo poles. He was well-nigh bewildered, when above the din sounded the welcome music of an ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith
... yourself a bald-headed personage, about forty years of age, near seven feet high, deaf as a post, stammering and making convulsive efforts to express a sentence of five words, which, after all, his gibberish made unintelligible. His dress was as eccentric as his person was singular, and his manners corresponded with both. He called himself Baron von Bulow, and I saw him afterwards, in the autumn of 1797, at ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... hermitage a school. The feudal ages were a wonderful seed-time in a world all gaunt with ruins. Horrors were there mingled with delicacies and confusion with idyllic peace. It was here a poet's childhood passed amid the crash of war, there an alchemist's old age flickering away amid cobwebs and gibberish. Something jocund and mischievous peeped out even in the cloister; gargoyles leered from the belfry, while ivy and holly grew about the cross. The Middle Ages were the true renaissance. Their Christianity was the theme, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... cheek as she met his inquiring gaze, and the conscious, half conceited, half girlish toss of her little head as she turned her eyes away, and then a file of brown Chinamen, muttering some harsh, uncouth gibberish, interposed between them. This was followed by what seemed to be the crashing in of the church roof, a stifling heat succeeded by a long, deadly chill. But he knew that THIS last was all a dream, and he tried to struggle to his feet to see Cissy's face ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... is told to go and get his breakfast of mealy porridge, but he won't admit that it is to be called "paniche," preferring his own word "scoff;" so he shakes his head violently and says, "Nay, nay, paniche." Then, with many nods, "Scoff, ja;" and so in this strange gibberish of three languages he and the Frenchman carry on quite a pretty quarrel. Charlie also "mocks himself" of the other servants, I am informed, and asserts that he is the "indema" or headman. He freely ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... a shame to me, then, that I used that secrecy," said his mother, with a flash of new anger. "There is no shame attaching to me. I have no reason to be ashamed. I rid myself of the Jewish tatters and gibberish that make people nudge each other at sight of us, as if we were tattooed under our clothes, though our faces are as whole as theirs. I delivered you from the pelting contempt that pursues Jewish separateness. I am not ashamed that I did it. It ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... tinkle of many bells meant refreshment and most gregarious frivolity for the chattering, loitering, laughing and ever-spectacular groups so far below him—and how he hated their outlandish gibberish and their arrogant European aloofness!—it meant for him hard work, and hard work of a ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... said I, "is not gibberish; it was the name of the great wooden image at Ty Dewi, or Saint David's, in Pembrokeshire, to which thousands of pilgrims in the days of popery used to repair for the purpose of adoring it, and which at the time of the ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... I cannot doubt it any longer; they are completely mad. (Aloud). Once more, I tell you, I understand nothing of all this gibberish; I will be master, and to cut short all kinds of arguments, either you shall both be married shortly, or, upon my word, you shall ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... their peace, defence, and liberties; and from the illiterate and contemned mechanic (a name of disgrace) that they received the improvements of useful arts. Nevertheless, this artificial ignorance, and learned gibberish, prevailed mightily in these last ages, by the interest and artifice of those who found no easier way to that pitch of authority and dominion they have attained, than by amusing the men of business, and ignorant, with hard words, or employing the ingenious and idle in intricate disputes ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... had been careful to buy a young one that could not speak, for he knew the Morris boys would not want one chattering foreign gibberish, nor yet one that would swear. He had kept her in his bunk in the ship, and had spent all his leisure time in teaching her to talk. Then he looked at her anxiously, and said, "Show ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... that?" cried Malaga; "it all sounds like gibberish to me. As you thought the sturgeon so excellent at dinner, let me take out the value of the sauce in lessons ...
— A Man of Business • Honore de Balzac
... woman, and very distinguished besides. My sister was sixteen when I left; she must be eighteen now. She was pretty, and she ought to be beautiful. Then there is my brother Edouard, a delightful youngster of twelve, who will let off fireworks between your legs and chatter a gibberish of English with you. At the end of the fortnight we will go ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... dickens are you talking about, Cleek? And what does all that gibberish and that word ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... I'll take breath here if you'll allow me," said Allan. "Blackstone might put it in shorter sentences, I think, if he can't put it in fewer words. Cheer up, Neelie! there must be other ways of marrying, besides this roundabout way, that ends in a Publication and a Void. Infernal gibberish! I could ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins |
