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Reduplicatives - Double Delight

By Sharon

Reduplicatives never travel alone. In fact, they always come in pairs and sometimes sound rather silly. These are the words formed through reduplication, when you repeat a word to form a new one, or slightly change the vowel or consonant. These are inventive and musical words and there are hundreds of them in English.

Also called ‘echo words’, there are three basic types of reduplicatives. Some repeat the word exactly, some of them use rhyme for formation while the others use vowel or consonant shift to come up with the other half of the pair. Most of them are two syllable words (four, if you count both halves of the pair), though there are some with three syllables.

This type of word formation seems to come naturally to us. Shakespeare was responsible for hurly-burly , which is still in use, as well as other reduplicatives that are rarely seen outside the plays. Recent additions to the genre include the chick-flick, a film geared towards women. Here are some common reduplicatives.

Repeating the same word:

ack-ack
aye-aye
bang-bang
beriberi
bonbon
boo-boo
bye-bye
cha-cha
choo-choo
chop chop
froufrou
goody goody
ha-ha
hush hush
muumuu
night-night
no-no
papa
pawpaw

Rhyming:

airy-fairy
argy-bargy
artsy-fartsy
boo hoo
boogie-woogie
bow-wow
easy-peasy
fuddy-duddy
hanky-panky
heebie-jeebies
helter-skelter
higgledy-piggledy
hocus-pocus
hodge-podge
hoity-toity
itsy-bitsy
jeepers creepers
mumbo-jumbo
namby-pamby
nitty gritty
okey-dokey
super-duper
willy-nilly

Vowel changes:

chit-chat
clip clop
criss-cross
dilly-dally
ding-dong
flim-flam
flip-flop
hip-hop
knick-knack
mish-mash
ping pong
pitter-patter
riff-raff
riprap
see-saw
shilly-shally
tick tock
tittle-tattle
zigzag

Feel free to add your own in the comments and check out this list for more.

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Full post as published by Daily Writing Tips on April 23, 2008 (boomark / email).