ABSTRACT
10.11. Repetition of the same syllable or syllables comes natural to all human beings and is found very often in all languages as a means of strengthening an utterance. What is repeated may be an ordinary word, as in the repeated interjections Come, cornel | Hear, hear! | Well, well!.—Further such combinations as girly-girly | goody-goody | pretty-pretty | talkee-talkee or talky-talky (Shaw J 110 all that Irish exaggeration and talky-talky) | far far away | Science moves, but slowly slowly (Tennyson 101) | those many many bodies (Sh Hml III. 3.9) | an old, old man (e. g. Di X 46, Shelley 168) | this eternal cackle, cackle, cackle about things in general is only fit for old, old, old people (Shaw Ms 31). Combined with and: again and again | for years and years (= ‘many years’) | more and more | by little and little | he would dig, and dig (Di T 1.22) | when a man listens and listens (Stevenson JH 5) || he sat as glum as glum (Galsw F Ch 50), also as plain as plain could be (cf vol III 9.53). Cf. also Fijn van Draat EStn 43.302 and Poutsma in Curme-volume 124.
