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I'm writing a formal essay, and I'm wondering about the usage of the word "gibberish."

According to Google, the definition of "gibberish" is unintelligible or meaningless speech or writing; nonsense.

I'm planning on saying "When played by the band, the song was reduced to gibberish."

Here, "gibberish" is neither speech nor writing, it's sound - music to be precise.

Is this still an appropriate use of "gibberish?"

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    You could use it that way metaphorically, but a better word might be cacophony.
    – Robusto
    Commented Oct 9, 2016 at 5:40
  • Can dissonance fit the context here? It's synonymous with cacophony, but the main definition given by Google being, "lack of harmony among musical notes.", Since the example is music related.
    – Vanpram P
    Commented Oct 9, 2016 at 5:54
  • @VanpramP Yeah, but it doesn't have the same strong effect. When something is dissonant is just sounds bad, and things can also be on-purposely dissonant, whereas this song was musically destroyed (reduced to gibberish).
    – Pro Q
    Commented Oct 9, 2016 at 15:53

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There are two theories of the origin of the word 'gibberish' but they both say that it refers to unintelligible speech with the '-ish' ending referring to language as in English, Danish, Spanish etc. That is the etymological theories conceive of 'gibberish' as being a language which "Isn't English, isn't Spanish, isn't Danish, it's gibberish.

Given this etymology I would say that that music can't be 'gibberish' as even music which is played properly isn't, strictly, a language. However lyrics certainly can be gibberish, particularly when someone with no understanding of a language tries to sing a song in that language. This can also apply to seriously drunk people at karaoke nights!

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