Eggcorn Forum

The verb “gibber” has been around for a long time. Shakespeare used it. “Gibber” means to babble and is presumably of onomatopoetic origin.

Since the early nineteenth century, the present participle, “gibbering,” has been the most common form of the verb. Today the participial verb is largely confined to a pair of idiomatic expressions: “gibbering wreck” and “gibbering idiot.”

A few dozen web sites have “glibbering” in place of “gibbering.” Glib, from an old Teutonic term for slippery/sloped, is known mostly because of its metaphorical extension to speech. A slippery-tongued, glib person is a talker. Glib people, we might imagine, talk so much that they utter a lot of gibberish.

At present the derived noun/adjective “gibberish” sees more employment than any of the verbal forms. As we might expect, “glibberish” is well represented on the web, though the examples of it are much diluted by puns.

Comment on Star Trek forum: “eyes half closed, begins blabbering like a glibbering wreck”

Australian blog entry: “I’m too scared to try – I’ve watched it turn Leon to a glibbering wreck.”

1961 article in the St. Petersburg [Florida] Sunday Independent : “I will be a rich, glibbering idiot when this is through”

Blog entry: “ his quest to follow in his father’s footsteps is hampered by the fact that out in the field he is always dissolving into a meeping, glibbering idiot.”

Comment on a cooking site: “Hi I use AOL as my browser and all I get is glibberish on the ads.”