tangletalk means A playful style of language with deliberate incongruities, as in: "A barefoot boy with shoes on stood sitting in the grass". Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 84 out of 100.
Why this word is great
TANGLETALK — [Noun] A playful style of language characterized by deliberate incongruities and contradictions, often used in children's lore. A compound word formed from 'tangle' (to twist together in a confused mass) and 'talk' (speech or conversation); coined by folklorists Iona and Peter Opie. Unlike nonsense, which broadly denotes meaningless absurdity, or double Dutch, which implies a secret, impenetrable code, tangletalk is a curated architecture of paradox designed for shared decipherment and delight. It is the boast that 'I'm telling you three times to listen once,' the culinary riddle of a 'square egg,' or the dizzying declaration 'I'm on my way to the place I just came from'—a brief, glittering snarl in the fabric of ordinary sense, proving confusion, when perfectly shaped, becomes its own kind of meaning.
noun
- A playful style of language with deliberate incongruities, as in: "A barefoot boy with shoes on stood sitting in the grass".