Amphigory
Noun
- A nonsense verse; a rigmarole, which is meaningless despite possibly appearing to have meaning.
Example Sentences
“Lewis Carroll’s poem ‘Jabberwocky’ is an amphigory that sounds like regular English, until one examines its nonsense words in detail.”
“I was struggling to understand my poetry assignment, until a classmate revealed it was an amphigory and couldn’t be understood at face value.”
“The poem was an amphigory, but I still spent an hour trying to make sense of it.”
Word Origin
French, late 18th century
Why this word?
This literary device is essentially a bit of gobbledygook. A well-known amphigory is found in the closing credits of the 1980s sitcom “WKRP in Cincinnati.” Musician Jim Ellis wrote music for a song to play over the end credits but didn’t yet have words prepared, so in an early demo he sang gibberish over the hard-rock backing track and was surprised to discover it sounded effective. At a time when critics complained rock vocals were becoming unintelligible, the meaningless syllables belted over the closing credits of “WKRP” were a joke of their own.
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