Gary Shannon wrote:

<snip>


> Back in the 1940's there were a few radio and television comedians who
> specialized in "double talk."  I haven't heard anything like it for probably
> 35 or 40 years. As a collector of old time radio programs on tape I have
> quite few examples of this.  For those not familiar with it, the comedian
> rattles off long, seemingly meaningful sentences that sound like perfectly
> good English, except they use about 50% real words and 50% English-sounding
> nonsense words.  It leaves you with the impression that you _should_ be able
> to understand him, but you find yourself completely baffled by what he is
> saying.  All in all the effect is quite humerous.  I always wanted to be
> able to double talk like that but I could never get the hang of it.
>
> --Gary.

I'm not that good at it either, but now that you mention it, I am reminded of a
college prank that a friend and I pulled off once.
My friend proposed that the two of us take a liesurely stroll across campus,
"involved in a heated
debate", loudly screaming our lungs off at each other in an attempt to "convince
the other of our view",
but not using one word of English or any other natlang. It was to be total
"doubletalk". We wanted to
see the reactions of  people. (He was excellant at producing streams of novel
utterances, although AFAIK, he wasn't
a conlanger). The results: none! Nobody paid us the least bit of attention ---
we had forgotten to take
into account one basic fact: it was the 60's in the U.S.  and wierdness was all
around us! :-)   We'd have
made more of an impression by having had a quiet, philisophical debate in high
level, normal English!

Dan Sulani


--
 likehsna  rtem  zuv  tikuhnuh  auag  inuvuz  vaka'a.

 A  word  is  an  awesome  thing.