rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb

Interjection

(chiefly UK)

1. (UK) Background noise of simultaneous conversations, none of which is decipherable since the actors are repeating the word rhubarb or other words with similar attributes.
   • 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...1981: Tony Harrison, The Rhubarbarians I in collection Continuous: 50 sonnets from 'The School of Eloquence' . Rex Collings, London (1981)
2. (UK, derogatory) Speech which is undecipherable to the listener because it is in a language he or she does not understand; mumbo jumbo.
   • 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").1997, Stephen R L Clark, Animals and Their Moral Standing
3. (UK) Blah blah; etc, etc.
   • Not allowed to blah blah blah rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb. Just what I don't need when I'm feeling kind of seedy.1998, Brigid Lowry, Guitar Highway Rose