While reading John A. Farrell’s biography of Richard Nixon I came across a brief account of Nixon’s soon-to-be wife Pat standing around Hollywood sets but rejecting a career in show business because she “saw through the movieland taradiddles.”

I don’t think I’ve ever come across the word taradiddles before and even in context I wasn’t sure what it meant. The strange thing is, after looking it up I still wasn’t all that clear on it and I can’t even say if Farrell is using it correctly. I might also add here that its etymology is uncertain. It was probably just an arrangement of funny syllables that don’t mean anything.

At the most basic level a taradiddle is a lie. Or perhaps fib would be a better way of putting it. But most dictionaries present it as having two meanings: (1) pretentious nonsense, and (2) a small, petty, or trivial lie. My problem is that these seem like two different things. Or at least two different kinds of lying.

I don’t know what sense Farrell was using it in. Probably pretentious nonsense. Hollywood has some of that. In any event, it was a new word for me but not one that I have any intention of ever using myself just because it’s so long-winded, cutesy, and vague.

Words, words, words