Slight antedating of "bafflegab"?

[Michael Quinion]

Joel S. Berson wrote:

> From another list [source of the text below unfortunately lost].  This
> might antedate OE2 by 4 days.

That was from a piece I wrote a couple of years ago, which is online at

  http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-baf1.htm

This is the full citation (submitted to OED Incomings at the time), which
is an expanded version of the one Grant Barrett mentioned:

1952 Walla Walla Union Bulletin (Walla Walla, Washington) 19 Jan. 2/4 The
Office of Price Stabilization was Smith's target when he coined
`bafflegab´ in writing about an OPS order. He did so in the chamber's
weekly publication, Washington Report. The Bellingham Herald noted it-and
wrote an editorial saying: `Gobbledegook is mouth-filling, but it lacks
the punch of bafflegab. The inventor of that one deserves an award.´ The
paper promptly donated a plaque. DiSalle said Smith could have the plaque
only if he defined his new word. Smith had a written definition ready
saying `bafflegab´ is `multiloquence characterized by consummate
interfusion of circumlocution or periphrasis, inscrutability, and other
familiar manifestations of abstruse expatiation commonly utilized for
promulgations implementing Procrustean determinations by governmental
bodies´. [From NewspaperArchive.com]


--
Michael Quinion
Editor, World Wide Words
E-mail: wordseditor at worldwidewords.org
Web: http://www.worldwidewords.org

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