Rebecca Greenfield, “The Brouhaha Behind ‘Argle Bargle’: A Linguistic Explanation” (The Atlantic Wire, June 26, 2013)
“‘Argle-bargle’ is formed by what’s known as rhyming reduplication,” linguist Ben Zimmer told The Atlantic Wire. “Reduplication,” is when “a word formation process by which some part of a base (a segment, syllable, morpheme) is repeated, either to the left, or to the right, or, occasionally, in the middle,” as the Lexicon of Linguistics explains it. So, it’s like okey-dokey or mumbo-jumbo.
It’s not exactly Supreme Court level language, which is exactly why Scalia chose it. People use these types of terms to sound either juvenile or pejorative, which was the justice’s point: These other opinions aren’t just wrong, they’re argle-bargle level wrong, or plain dumb. “I think Scalia’s pejorative intentions were clear, but he was looking for something a bit more exotic than ‘mumbo-jumbo,'” added Zimmer.
Read the rest here. (Related Word Routes column, Language Log post)