“Say it once and then again
Make sure it’s not a chain
All you have to gain
Is to simply ascertain!”
Do you remember the song ‘wake me up before you go go!’?
Makes you wonder why we say some words twice!
It is all because of Lexical Cloning!
Read on!
First understand what is Lexical cloning; it is the process of creating a new word or phrase by modifying an existing one, often by adding a prefix, suffix, or combining it with another word!
This can involve Affixation like adding a prefix or suffix to a word, like “unhappy” or “happiness” or Compounding which is combining two words to create a new one, like “classroom” or “chairman” or Blending which is simply the merging parts of two words to create a new one, like “smog” (smoke + fog) or “brunch” (breakfast + lunch) or like Chandler did with male nanny or “manny!” and there is also a type of cloning where you simply double the words!
There are other places where we use Lexical cloning by repeating the same word twice one after another.
For example, when someone uses the expression, “I’m dead,” we know that it doesn’t literally mean that they’ve physically died. So when we hear someone described as “dead,” we may want to clarify, “Do you mean dead dead?” to refer to the physical act of actually passing away instead of just the expression to mean that someone is in trouble!
Another common way is when you ask your kid or anyone before exams if he or she has studied? and he or she says, “I have studied but did not study study!” Which means that he or she has read it once or twice as a glance but has not read it more deeply!
Another example is BYE BYE! Not only the NSync song which has been made famous by the new DeadPool movie but also the word as such!
Have you ever wondered why we say ‘bye’ twice!? or the dead twice or study twice!?
The ’emphasis’ on the second time is to create more EMPHASIS!
When you need a quick, informal way to bid your friend adieu, you’ll probably say, “Bye!” It’s shorthand for “goodbye,” and when adults speak to babies and children, there’s a tendency to double it: “Bye bye!”
This is to reassert that they are leaving for sure!
I guess when it comes to babies and kids you need to do this! Like No no or yes yes! No no is more common though! Yes usually comes alone though since it does not need much emphasis!
In our medical school I always used to wonder why we used to say AGAR AGAR! Initially I thought that the teacher is just repeating for clarity and I just wrote AGAR once! But that was apparently wrong!
So as you know an agar plate is a Petri dish that contains a growth medium solidified with agar, used to culture microorganisms.
But how the AGAR got another one is because of a Malaysian custom!
In the 19th century, Chinese migrants brought the Japanese product to Malaysia, and adopted the local name of ‘agar’, which means ‘jelly’ or ‘gelatin’.
In this country it is customary to repeat the word twice to give it more emphasis, the literal translation being ‘gelatin-gelatin’ so the product was called Agar Agar! It still is called that to this day! You can try writing only Agar once at your own risk risk! Risk also was playing a villain in a cool movie like Makhi or ee or eega but birthday celebrity Sudeepa or Kichcha Sudeep did it and how HOW! See what I did there there!
Ok now enough! Night night! I mean Shubh ratri!
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