double talk

double-talk

1. Speech that is intentionally misleading, unclear, or confusing. After all this double-talk, I have no idea what the candidate actually believes in.
2. Nonsense speech. I can't understand half of the cutesy double-talk that my mom subjects the baby to.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

double talk

1. Meaningless speech, gibberish mixing real and invented words. For example, Some popular songs are actually based on double talk. [1930s]
2. Also, doublespeak. Deliberately ambiguous and evasive language. For example, I got tired of her double talk and demanded to know the true story, or His press secretary was very adept at doublespeak. This usage dates from the late 1940s, and the variant from about 1950.
See also: double, talk
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
See also:
  • double-talk
  • fuzzword
  • prunes and prisms
  • and the band played on
  • band
  • brainwash
  • brainwash (someone) with (something)
  • brainwash with
  • get into (one's) head
  • get into someone's head
References in periodicals archive
The four strategies that were highlighted by an experienced EAL biology teacher were double talk, dictionary use, prior access to material and annotating in their native language.
But Double Talk is concerned with more than one kind of doubleness.
Many persons saw the double talk in the Winnipeg Statement.
As part of the Jazz in the Journal, Culture Club members can see Theo Travis' Double Talk Quartet at the Cluny on Tuesday November 27 at 8.30pm, for the special price of just pounds 3, (normal price pounds 7).
What kind of political double talk is "I support equal rights under the law for every single American," yet political fears keep him from actually saying "gay Americans"?
- Great nations do not hoax others by double talk and wage war on the pretext of introducing democracy, human rights and the absolution of terror, when the ulterior motive is something else!Nor do Arab leaders hide in foxholes to evade being caught to face the worst humiliation an ordinary Arab layman could hardly endure!Zarqawi and Bin Laden are just a tip-of-the-iceberg of the ongoing turbulence in the Middle East.
The "double talk, double text" adverts wrongly implied that existing customers could get the same deal as new users, the Advertising Standards Authority said.
Are we to believe that the movers and the shakers and the experts in conspiracy are going to instigate such a stupid search without having it play out exactly as they intend, despite the incredible double talk of Bush?
Nobody likes double talk. No one approves of a cover up.
In 1989 I published my first book, Double Talk: The Erotics of Male Literary Collaboration.
Among this fall's rollouts is Double Talk, billed as offering "nonstop" lip color along with a shiny clear topcoat in one double-ended case.
DOUBLE TALK: A shot from the Tesco-backed ad urging that both languages be used in business
In short, we are awash in double standards, double talk, and multiple troubles, a situation that confounds logic, weakens our historic ideal of equal justice, intensifies intergroup hostility, and undermines the principles of American democracy.
FM David Levy says the "double talk of war and peace casts a shadow on the real intentions of the participants in their relationship to the peace process".
I want it to guarantee, without qualifications, without double talk, that it is destroying the remaining weapons in the safest way without regard to the $650 million incinerator construction price tag, and I want to be able to believe a government guarantee for maybe the first time in my adult life.