The AP reports that, during a radio interview, Mario Cuomo urged Al Gore to rejoin the Presidential race, asserting that the current crop of Democratic candidates is disunited. “It is not a chorus,” the article quotes Cuomo as saying. “It is a babble.” The article goes on to consult Webster’s Dictionary for a definition of “babble” (“to make incoherent sounds, as a baby does, prattle”).
Considering the context, I would confidently conjecture that Cuomo’s “babble” betokens not a baby’s bellowing, but that biblical building, “Babel,” found in Genesis 11:9. Either reading makes some sort of sense, but I think mine makes more. Would you agree? And if the beacon of the AP can’t guide us through the homophonic darkness, to whom can we turn?
Matt Thompson
Online Reporter
Poynter.org
Answer:
Surely this brilliant young reporter is correct.
The story of the Tower of Babel is one of the most interesting in the Hebrew scripture. Babel was the name of a city, possibly Babylon, in which over-ambitious citizens attempted to build a tower that would reach heaven. God cursed their pride through the confusion of many languages. From that story we get the word ‘babel,’ which the AHD defines as:
- A confusion of voices or languages.
- A scene of noise and confusion.
This is surely the source of the Cuomo critique of the Democratic presidential pack. At the very least, we venture to say that the former New York governor displayed a cultural literacy that the reporters who covered him lack.
The word ‘babble,’ which sounds exactly like ‘babel,’ may derive from the biblical story, or may be onomatopoetic, that is, echoing the sound it signifies.
And, finally, to show off his own cultural literacy, Dr. Ink will just mention that the curse of Babel is undone by the story of Pentecost in the Christian scriptures. In that story, the frightened disciples of Christ are hidden away in an upper room when they are visited by the Spirit of God in the form of flaming tongues. Not only does this visitation give them courage, but when they preach to the masses from many nations, they can be understood by all.
That, the author of Acts of the Apostles might have said, is the rest of the story.
