DEC 15, (re)duplication: fuddle-duddle

poetry lyrics:/ Trudeau (pere) got our heads in a muddle/ When he mumbled,

 (he claimed),"Fuddle-duddle"./ (Then curmudgeons would cluck/ "In the House, he said f***!"),

/ Back in days when our language was subtle. 

Authors' Note: (usually, FUD-uhl-dud-uhl, or with a French lilt, as here, fud-uhl-DUD-uhl)

fuddle-duddle: an infrequently used (re)duplication, voiced dismissively in dealing with opinions that the speaker rejects.

In 1971 Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, father of current PM Justin Trudeau, unleashed a minor scandal by using unparliamentary language in the Canadian House of Commons. A portion of the ensuing brouhaha, deftly sidestepped by Trudeau, revolved around whether he had actually spoken or merely mouthed the inappropriate words.

Web discussion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuddle_duddle

Readers willing to go down an internet rabbit-hole can easily get to a collection of more than a dozen other SHORT VERSES  in which we have dealt with specific reduplications. 

If interested you could also discover three fairly lengthy PATTER-SONGS about this fascinating linguistic phenomenon. These songs form an important part of our cycle of 9 songs about "Word Pairs".

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