the.com/mumble
the art of saying everything and nothing while your mouth stays politely closed
means To speak so quietly or unclearly that your words blur into an indistinct murmur, hard for anyone to make out.
from From Middle English mumlen, meaning to mutter or eat in a slow, lip-closed way. It's an imitative word — built to sound like the very thing it names, the soft closed-lipped hum of someone talking through 'mum.' It shares a family resemblance with 'mum' (silent, as in 'keep mum') and 'mumble' may be a frequentative of that root, the verbal equivalent of doing it over and over: mum-mum-mumbling.
- jaw physics
- Speaking with minimal jaw movement blurs consonants into mush
- rap subgenre
- Mumble rap turned slurred delivery into a chart-topping style
- actor's trick
- Brando mumbled deliberately to force audiences to lean in
- crowd noise
- A 'mumble' is also a low murmur of many voices
- old roots
- Word likely imitates the muffled sound itself
mumble rap — soundcloud rap subgenre popularized by artists like gunna and lil baby in the 2010s
mumble island — uninhabited scottish island in the hebrides known for its inaccessible terrain