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Happy-clappy 

Professor David Crystal 

This is one of those reduplicated words, where the two words 

are almost the same, but they just change one little part: change 

the vowel, or change the consonants in this particular case - 

usually the consonant at the front, like "willy-nilly" - and "Ping-Pong" is one where the vowel changes.  

Well 'happy-clappy' came in in the, oh 1980s I suppose, referring 

to a member of usually a Christian charismatic group, 

characterised by enthusiastic handclapping and a very extrovert 

emotion, set of emotions being expressed – but it isn’t restricted 

to that. I’ve heard it used in all sorts of other contexts as well. It’s 

a mildly mocking word. If somebody says that somebody is 

'happy-clappy', there’s a sort of feeling of distaste about it.  

And the thing is, that the idea has moved beyond the religious circumstance now. 

It refers to anybody showing some kind of extrovert emotion, some kind of rather 

superficial feeling very often. You might say of somebody "he’s got a very happy-clappy attitude". It means he’s just producing his emotions without much thought 

all the time. So anybody who gets very enthusiastic and suddenly becomes a little 

over the top... starts to act out something... I'm now getting very happy-clappy 

about all this... 'cos I’m so happy to be on the radio, and now ... well, this isn’t really 

very appropriate for the BBC, is it?