So, in keeping with tradition of a word for Wednesday, I am now going to introduce you all to another of me Dad's favourites:
ARGY-BARGY
This expression remains all too clear for me even now, probably because I was almost always the one on the receiving end! Dad would give me something to do and would invariably add "now, I don't want no argy-bargy, you hear me?" If that particular something involved my brother or sister then my guess is that he felt he had even more reason for adding it!
Argy-bargy was a late nineteenth-century modification of a Scots phrase, which appeared early in the same century in the form argle-bargle. The second part of the two forms, in fact, is no more than a nonsense rhyming repetition of which the English language is full. The technical word for such doublets is reduplication. Think easy-peasy, hoity-toity, super-duper, etc.
So what does argy-bargy mean. In most webs I've looked at it means 'a lively discussion, argument, dispute, perhaps one which becomes bad tempered enough to produce a spat or minor quarrel'
Shall we call it a day?
This expression remains all too clear for me even now, probably because I was almost always the one on the receiving end! Dad would give me something to do and would invariably add "now, I don't want no argy-bargy, you hear me?" If that particular something involved my brother or sister then my guess is that he felt he had even more reason for adding it!
Argy-bargy was a late nineteenth-century modification of a Scots phrase, which appeared early in the same century in the form argle-bargle. The second part of the two forms, in fact, is no more than a nonsense rhyming repetition of which the English language is full. The technical word for such doublets is reduplication. Think easy-peasy, hoity-toity, super-duper, etc.
So what does argy-bargy mean. In most webs I've looked at it means 'a lively discussion, argument, dispute, perhaps one which becomes bad tempered enough to produce a spat or minor quarrel'
Shall we call it a day?
No comments:
Post a Comment