Meaning of rhubarb rhubarb | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Background noise of simultaneous conversations, none of which is decipherable since the actors are repeating the word rhubarb or other words with similar attributes.
   British
2. Speech which is undecipherable to the listener because it is in a language he or she does not understand; mumbo jumbo.
   British, derogatory
3. Blah blah; etc, etc.
   British

Examples

“Those glottals glugged like poured pop, each /rebarbative syllable, remembrancer, raise /‘mob' rhubarb-rhubarb to a tribune's speech /crossing the crackle as the hayracks blaze...”

“(stage direction) They all rise and drink. Rhubarb, rhubarb...To convey the next stage of To convey the next stage of general inebriation, the remarks that follow are spoken in a sing-song.”

“(film stage direction) Pan to a shot of the crowd of humanists surging forward and murmuring "Rhubarb, rhubarb".”

“Human beings and human speech are historical inventions as well: our actual experience for long enough was of ‘ourselves', the local tribes of people, dogs and horses, and of the ‘others', theria (wild beasts) and barbaroi (who make noises that only vaguely sound like speech, as "rhubarb, rhubarb").”

“‘Barbarians' who made noises which sounded like ‘rhubarb-rhubarb' to Greeks who could not (and did not want to) understand them.”

“I heard my name amongst so much mumbo jumbo. “Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, Robert.””

“Not allowed to blah blah blah rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb. Just what I don't need when I'm feeling kind of seedy.”

“Judith recruited me as the voice of the grass roots. I said rhubarb, rhubarb to oblige her, but I felt like a charlatan. I had mobilized out of a genuine sense of outrage at Cathy's treatment, but the demand to enter the Oxford Union was another matter.”

“All tutors and examiners are familiar with the essay which begins, in effect, 'All the poets of the seventeenth century said, "Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb," and in this Marvell was no exception.'”

CEFR level