blither

* The writing instructor told his students that, while their writing shouldn't be so short that it's incomplete, they shouldn't babble (or blither or blather) on.

Well, now here's something: I took a 10-minute break from this blither to paint a chandelier lime green and the wind shifted on me midspray.

I don't mean that Nixon was more sincere than those who came after; his duplicity was legendary ("Would you buy a used car from this man?"), and he pioneered some of the media manipulations that we now take for standard practice: the use of television to obfuscate scandal in a blither of family-values kitsch, as in the "Checkers" speech; the public announcement of a reformulated political self, as in the many "new Nixons." But in his day politics had yet to become a branch of entertainment (contrast Nixon's famously awkward cameo on Laugh-In with Bill Clinton's effortless charm on Arsenio).

Bladderskate transmuted over time into blabber and blabbermouth plus blither and blitering idiot .

"We get the cash the 20th time that a newspaper starts a story 'Coventry are set to miss out on a cash windfall' and the rest of the article blithers on about England call-ups, injury jinxes, most promising young keeper in the country, blah, blah, blah, etc, etc, etc.