tarradiddle

[sardith]

Just a question....Why is it that if a tarradiddle is a falsehood, someone who does it cannot be called a tarradiddler?

After all, someone who tells a lie is a liar. Just wondering...

[LukeJavan8]

I see you receive Dictionary.com too!
their word of the day:


tarradiddle \tair-uh-DID-uhl\, noun;
also taradiddle:

1. A petty falsehood; a fib.
2. Pretentious nonsense.

Oh please! Even in the parallel universe, tarradiddles of this magnitude cannot go unchallenged.
-- "Taxation in the parallel universe", Sunday Business, June 11, 2000
Mr B did not tell a whopper. This was no fib, plumper, porker or tarradiddle. There was definitely no deceit, mendacity or fabrication.
-- "Looking back", Western Mail, May 11, 2002
Other amendments, such as a chef at the birthday party, a dancing bear in the hunting scene, and a brief solo for the usually pedestrian Catalabutte, seemed more capricious, and the synopsis suggested further changes had been planned but perhaps found impractical. Some tarradiddle with roses for death and rebirth also necessitated different flowers for the traditional Rose Adagio.
-- John Percival, "The other St Petersburg company", Independent, November 22, 2001
Tarradiddle is of unknown origin.

[sardith]

Yes indeed, Luke. That is what prompted my query. After reading the Dictionary.com Word-of-the-day information, I did some 'googling' and found that people are using the word 'tarradiddler' to name those dastardly persons who tell falsehoods, but was unable to verify that 'tarradiddler' was a bona fide word. What I want to know is: Why would it NOT be considered a word?

[LukeJavan8]

Considering that I've never heard of it, I could not
answer your query. But if you and I begin today
to use it then we can perhaps make it a word.

Does the Doc ever answer your queries, I like them,
and was wondering? I'd like to hear what he has
to say.

Perhaps for a starter, based on slavas comment elsewhere:
"The bloviating blatherskites feeding us their
tarradiddling codswallop upset me".

[Slava]

What I want to know is: Why would it NOT be considered a word?

Perhaps it is a word that is in the common spoken language, but has not yet been recorded often enough to make it into the dictionaries. It's a potential, but not yet seen often enough.

[sardith]

So, Slava, if I understand you correctly, in the case of 'tarradiddler', it would be a matter of popularity of usage that would determine whether it would be added to the official lexicon, and it would NOT be kept out because of some rule of which I am unaware ~ right?

[Slava]

That is my understanding. Just as "ain't" is technically incorrect, it is still listed in many dictionaries. It may be labeled as sub-standard use, but it will be there.

One problem tarradiddle may have is that it is a noun at present, not a verb. If you bloviate tarradiddle, you are a bloviator.

As you say in your first post above, "tarradiddle is a falsehood." Just as one cannot be a "falsehooder," one cannot be a tarradiddler.

[beck123]

Good point, S, but our tendency would be to add that darned little -er to the word, anyway. I suppose that's how language evolves. Today it might be called a tarradiddlista.

Does anyone see the parallel to "paradiddle?" A paradiddle is a (made-up?) word used to describe a certain, simple beat pattern in drumming. There's a complete lexicon developed by drummers to describe verbally the hand movements they make when drumming, and many of the words are simply made up.

[sardith]

Point taken, Slava.

Beck, I like the tarradiddlista~gives it a little 'je ne sais quoi'!

[LukeJavan8]

I like that too.
Also the paradiddle. Have heard that term, and had
to look it up to see it's meaning. Was used in
some news commentary on music.

[beck123]

Check out this web page for the full panoply of oddball drumming terms...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudiment

Maybe these guys ARE musicians, after all.

[sluggo]

Very cool suggestion for WotD. I didn't know this was an actual word; I'd thought it was a scat:

To say she is his mother is an utter bit of folly!
(Oh, fie! our Strephon's not a rogue!)
Perhaps his brain is addled, and it's very melancholy!
(Taradiddle, taradiddle, tol lol lay!)
I wouldn't say a word that could be reckoned as injurious,
But to find a mother younger than her son is very curious,
And that's a kind of mother that is usually spurious.
(Taradiddle, taradiddle, tol lol lay!)

-- W.S. Gilbert, Iolanthe (1882)

...why not taradiddlist?

[LukeJavan8]

Check out this web page for the full panoply of oddball drumming terms...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudiment

Maybe these guys ARE musicians, after all.

Interesting piece of history: use of tabor, drums in warfare,
has been long recorded. This is a good one.