What's the difference between babble and mutter?

Babble


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To utter words indistinctly or unintelligibly; to utter inarticulate sounds; as a child babbles.
  • (v. i.) To talk incoherently; to utter unmeaning words.
  • (v. i.) To talk much; to chatter; to prate.
  • (v. i.) To make a continuous murmuring noise, as shallow water running over stones.
  • (v. i.) To utter in an indistinct or incoherent way; to repeat, as words, in a childish way without understanding.
  • (v. i.) To disclose by too free talk, as a secret.
  • (n.) Idle talk; senseless prattle; gabble; twaddle.
  • (n.) Inarticulate speech; constant or confused murmur.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Also analogues seem to be the producing of the so-called instinctives as mam(m)a and papa by somewhat older babies which are able to pass over from the babbling into permanent words of the adults' speech in which they persist if used without shifting of sounds since they are produced de novo generation by generation, but they are subordinate to shifting and possible extinction if used in the form of derivatives in the standard language, and some phenomena of the phylogenesis as the survival of less differentiated species contrary to the relatively quick extinction of the highly specialized ones.
  • (2) Then there's me and my buddy Ralph Garman , who does a daily radio show in LA, doing our entertainment podcast Hollywood Babble-On , which is basically just two guys who've worked in showbiz long enough to have informed opinions, sitting around taking the piss out of the entertainment industry.
  • (3) To listen to Gordon Brown this morning was to hear a babble of incoherent assertions, delivered very fast and with striking vigour and confidence, which in no way amount to an intellectual case for power.
  • (4) Phonetic transcriptions of 48 babbling samples from 11 normally hearing subjects, aged 4-18 months, and 39 samples from 14 hearing-impaired (HI) subjects, aged 4-39 months, were analyzed to determine the inventory of consonantal phones for each recording session.
  • (5) Significant monosyllabic-word-list intelligibility improvements are shown in hearing-impaired and in normal-hearing subjects for virtually any environmental noise, including white noise, babble (interfering background conversations), cafeteria noise, high-frequency noise, and low-frequency noise at signal-to-noise ratios to below -20 dB.
  • (6) Furthermore, low-frequency amplification, as used in this study, resulted in no observable degradation in syllable recognition in the presence of multitalker babble.
  • (7) These findings suggest both qualitative and quantitative differences in the babbling of the two groups.
  • (8) Our goal was to illuminate the role of canonical (well-formed syllabic) babbling in the development of speech by mentally retarded children.
  • (9) These findings indicate that for children with specific expressive language delay, vowel babble competes with expressive language, consonantal babble facilitates expressive language, and the length and social responsiveness of babble are independent of expressive language.
  • (10) Thinking of this kind makes Ai not only a great artist, but a thinker of the world's next political and intellectual phase, beyond the turgid babble of contemporary politics.
  • (11) This investigation examined phonetic variation in multisyllable babbling of infants from 0.7 to 0.11.
  • (12) The masking noise is an amplitude-modulated, speech-shaped noise signal, which is designed to simulate a 4-person speech babble in order to assess both the frequency selectivity and the temporal resolution.
  • (13) Acoustic-phonetic differences in the babbling of the two boys were evident in the 8-month sample (the first recording opportunity), and some differences between them became greater over the succeeding samples at 12 and 15 months.
  • (14) Additional testing with a smaller group of patients was carried out with competing noise (speech babble).
  • (15) The role of babbling in language development is not well understood.
  • (16) When both groups listened to speech that had been compressed and presented in a babble, their performance supported a multiplicative distortion theory, with children in the learning disabilities group showing a slightly greater multiplicative effect than the children with no apparent problems.
  • (17) For instance: "Very early experiences need to be rich in touch, face-to-face contact and stimulation through conversation (or reciprocating baby babble).
  • (18) Links between babbling and speech point to innate factors in the ontogeny of spoken language and invite attention to central control mechanisms.
  • (19) For someone who loves art but to whom the art world sounds like babbling in an invented language, this is godsend.
  • (20) Contrary to prevailing accounts of the neurological basis of babbling in language ontogeny, the speech modality is not critical in babbling.

Mutter


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To utter words indistinctly or with a low voice and lips partly closed; esp., to utter indistinct complaints or angry expressions; to grumble; to growl.
  • (v. i.) To sound with a low, rumbling noise.
  • (v. t.) To utter with imperfect articulations, or with a low voice; as, to mutter threats.
  • (n.) Repressed or obscure utterance.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) When accused of muttering it while reciting Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo, during filming of BBC2s Top Gear, he said he had not, that he would absolutely never use "the most racist word of them all".
  • (2) It's the kind of TV that makes for a wipe-your-weekend-plans box set: the ending of every crack-fix of an episode had me twitchily reaching for the remote to a muttered internal monologue of: "Next one, next one, now, now…" Danes carries the series as the bipolar CIA agent Carrie Mathison, whose furious vigilance is hard to distinguish from pathological mania as she investigates, and ultimately falls for, Sergeant Brody (Damian Lewis), a Marine who may or may not be a terrorist after eight years held captive by al-Qaida.
  • (3) Brownites used to mutter bitterly about their hero for failing to compete with Tony Blair after the death of John Smith.
  • (4) And that voice like a whip-crack: impish, transgressive, swooping from a mutter to a scream.
  • (5) Sampson became the discreet, muttering centre of a web, connected by telephone and letter, telegram and fax, to an astounding cast of world leaders and commentarians, film stars and novelists.
  • (6) For what it's worth, Labour lost on a whopping great 18% swing to the Tories, yet despite an awful lot of muttering absolutely nothing happened.
  • (7) True, he has trounced them so thoroughly that any mutterings of future challenges are an empty blast of sour breath.
  • (8) Two years as a minister is plenty of time to stack up enemies, or at least a few mutterings that you’ve made a hash of the job.
  • (9) Obviously it should be scoffed down in a box set, like a Supersize V Superskinny obese person's enormo-breakfast, before a period of lying green-faced in a darkened room, listening to experimental jazz, muttering, "Carrie can't let another mistake happen!
  • (10) "It's going to destroy property prices in this area," muttered one.
  • (11) As he checks the woman’s heart with a stethoscope, he explains exactly what is about to happen to her – the nurses will hook her up to an EKG machine, among other procedures – and gets the woman to lie down, still muttering at the original nurse but pliable.
  • (12) "Any politician that claims to you that they're an ordinary person is not telling you the truth," Miliband mutters, half smiling and wincing.
  • (13) Even the most fervent haters of the BBC can only mutter and mumble when Attenborough productions are mentioned.
  • (14) It was a misjudgment in the heat of the moment.” The forlorn-looking Formula One world champion muttered: “I can’t really express the way I’m feeling at the moment so I won’t attempt to.
  • (15) Not via muttering idiots, but upfront, with an acrid twist.
  • (16) He’s not just a straight-talker, he’s a man who reliably says the things politicians dream their opponents will be caught muttering within range of forgotten radio-mics – except he declaims them on a podium in front of thousands.
  • (17) ", seconds before splashing about in the sub-zero Atlantic muttering "bugger".
  • (18) Bit of muttering about justifying selling one's own grandmother Updated at 1.21pm BST 1.06pm BST As Barb Jacobson, of the European Citizen's initiative for a basic income, puts it, a basic income should be high enough for everyone to have a dignified life in society, and to take part in society.
  • (19) One woman muttered angrily to her companion: "It is the dumbing down of America."
  • (20) Some of the mutterings from Threadneedle Street are not the stuff to give the troops."