wringle-wrangle

wringle-wrangle

English

Etymology

From wrangle by ablaut reduplication[1].

Pronunciation

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Noun

wringle-wrangle (countable and uncountable, plural wringle-wrangles)

1. (slang) A verbal argument.
   • 1969, Poul Anderson, Satan's World:

     ‘I can propose it,’ van Rijn said carefully. ‘After a month's wringle-wrangle, I get voted no. They won't believe either, SI would do something so bad like that, for some sternly commercial reason.’

   • 1996, compiled by Eric S. Raymond, The New Hacker's Dictionary, page 453, definition of troglodyte:

     A curmudgeon attached to an obsolescent computing environment. The combination ITS troglodyte was flung around some during the Usenet and email wringle-wrangle attending the 2.x.x revision of the Jargon File; at least one of the people it was intended to describe adopted it with pride.

Verb

wringle-wrangle (third-person singular simple present wringle-wrangles, present participle wringle-wrangling, simple past and past participle wringle-wrangled)

1. (slang) To argue.
   • 1883, Sir Walter Besant, The Captains' Room etc., page 25:

     You know the foolishness of fighting; here is a haven of rest; and you must needs go back to wringle wrangle among the literary men of London.

Synonyms

• argle-bargle

References

1. Zimmer, Ben (2013-06-27), “Scalia's argle-bargle”, in Language Log‎, retrieved 2013-07-16