bwibble

[iirochka]

Hi again! What does this word - bwibble - mean to an englishspeaking person's ear? Can't find the meaning anywhere, and in the text I'm translating a car is referred to as "Miss Bwibble-I'm-An-Adjustable-Hedgehog" - what can that mean?

[jno]

I don't think there is really such a word. But it sounds as if it could be a nonsense word made up because it sounds similar to babble - which suggests talking without saying anything very much (it's often used for the light noise a small, shallow river might make going over stones - 'a babbling brook').

Can't think what an adjustable hedgehog might be, though!

[halfadaily]

From The Gryphon Guild dictionary.....Bwibble -- onomatopeia/statement - nonword to confuse

Are you any wiser?

[Kingaroo]

iirochka, please tell us more about the text you are translating! It sounds very odd. Are you using a computerized translator, which might be giving inaccurate translations?

[iirochka]

No, it's an english text I'm translating into Russian (it's from a UK magazine EVO) and here's the whole passage:

"You might have noticed that certain categories of car are well catered for in the current fleet, and one of them is the medium-sized hot hatch, here represented by Miss Wolfsburg, Miss Paris and Miss Bwibble-I�m-An-Adjustable-Hedgehog."

The described cars are VW (Miss Wolfsburg, I suppose), Renault and Citroen. I'm not sure which one is the Bwibble one...

[jno]

It seems to be talking about someone a bit simple or drunk - someone talking nonsense - but I really don't know, and I've been speaking English for decades. Maybe you could just translate it as Miss Gibberish or something.

[iirochka]

Yes, thank you all, I've got the idea, will think what to make of it!