Roald Dahl loved playing around with words and invented many new ones. In The BFG he gave this strange and funny language the name of Gobblefunk. He created this new language using these strategies:
1.Wordplay. Dahl uses language to create humour, often driving us crazy with our sense of logic and order. In his invented language there are:
*spoonerisms (transposing the initial letters or syllables of 2 or more words): catasterous disastrophe is a "disastrous catastrophe", swigpill is "pigswill" (a disgusting food or drink),
*malapropisms (using a word in mistake for one sounding similar): human bean instead of "human being".
*deliberate misspellings: norphan instead of "orphan".
2.Onomatopoeia (hopefully you remember from last year). A trogglehumper is a "nightmare" (try to say the word: the way it sounds indicates something really diasgreeable).
3.Similes and metaphors.
4.Alliteration or repetition of sounds (the BFG describes himself as brimful of buzzburgers).
5.Puns and nonsense words (Crunchem Hall primary school = "Crunch them all", a school were students are treated badly, "Am I right or left?"...)
Here are some words he invented with their definition (adapted from English 4 everyone), but rememeber you mustn´t learn by heart Dahl´s gobblefunk, the idea is to try and guess the meaning and basically to have fun with words:
-SNOZZCUMBER: The BFG refuses to eat people, so he must survive on this revolting bitter vegetable.
-FROBSCOTTLE: A delicious, fizzy and refreshing drink.
-WHIZZPOPPERS: The bubbles in frobscottle travel curiously downwards so they cause the drinker to 'break wind' instead of burp, this causes noises known as whizzpoppers.
-BLABBERSNITCH: a creature that lives at the bottom of the sea
-CRODSCOLLOP: A mouth-watering flavour; for example, the taste of chocolate ice cream
-BUGGLES: means completely crazy
-GOGGLER: an eye
-OOMPA-LOOMPA: A very small person. A tribe of them work in Willy Wonka´s fantastic chocolate factory.
-HORNSWOGGLER: A very dangerous creature.
-PHIZZ-WHIZZING: Means brilliant or really good!
-SPLATCH-WINKLE: Splatch-winkling means rushing around; in a hurry
-RINGBELLER: The BFG´s word for an amazingly excellent dream; the complete opposite of a nightmare
-SVOLLOP: To svollop something means to destroy it.
-TIME-TWIDDLER: A time-twiddler is very special. Time-twiddlers are immortal; they live forever and ever.
-VERMICIOUS KNID: Watch out! These beasts are vicious killers who can fool you by changing shape.
-WHOOPSY-SPLUNKERS: Used to describe something absolutely marvellous.
As The BFG says: “Words is oh such a twitch-tickling problem to me all my life.... I know exactly what words I am wanting to say, but somehow or other they is always getting squiff-squiddled around.”
Now discover some really scrumdiddlyumptious facts about Roald Dahl here.
