Word of the Week: April 9, 2001
Chitter Chatter Jargon

Birds seem to sit around and chit chat with one another. That's why we have words like chatter and even jargon. Both of those words are of "imitative" origin. Now, we all know that no bird actually says the word chatter or jargon (except maybe a myna bird or a parrot--but even then, one wonders if they should be called "words"). Even though we all know that, we use our voice to imitate the sounds birds make: That is where we get bird names like whippoorwill and pewit. It turns out that chatter, jargon, and kibitz all originally applied to the sounds that birds make. What a hoot!

Words of the Week are written by Dr. Jacques A. Bailly.