Blaggle (v.) 


A manner of speech in which one tacitly acknowledges the irrelevance and lack of import in what one is actually saying by finishing every other sentence with the words ‘blah blah blah’. 

Blaggling has a long and distinguished history that is thought to date back to the time of the Greek philosopher Socrates, who first coined the phrase during a long and rigourous defence of his methods whilst on trial for corrupting the youth of Athens. During this ordeal, as a result of a particularly nasty bout of abject rejectionism, he realised that nothing he could say was actually going to make a blind bit of difference and decided to finish his address with the now immortal words ‘blah blah blah’. He was promptly put to death on the grounds that nobody knew what this actually meant, but it was most likely intended to be incredibly rude, and well, they didn't really like him very much anyway because he had a very long beard, was more popular than them, and there was a particularly good crop of hemlock that year that it would be a shame to waste, and so on and so forth.

Although most of Socrates' own words are lost to us today, these three have survived as a lasting testament to his great skill and eloquence as an orator, and are in regular use all over the civilised world, and in keeping with this wise and noble tradition, blah blah blah… 

Posted on Sunday - May 01, 2005 at 01:25 PM            

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