hi! Could you please help me understand what 'Gab thirty to dozen' mean? I'm reading 'Dandelion Wine' and at the end of the book the main character describes how seasons change and along with it our b

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chromaTHICa

hi! Could you please help me understand what 'Gab thirty to dozen' mean? I'm reading 'Dandelion Wine' and at the end of the book the main character describes how seasons change and along with it our behavior changes as well. he describes a summer and then writes the following: "One minute, porches loaded, everyone gabbing thirty to a dozen. next minute, doors slam, talk stops, and leaves fall off trees like crazy"

Feb 2, 2022 6:48 PM

Answers · 10

Hi! I think 'Gab thirty to a dozen' is similar to the idiom 'talk nineteen and a dozen' in this sentence. 'Gab' means talk about trivial matters. It says that after everyone went on the porch, they started chit-chatting rapidly with each other. here, check this out! https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/talk%20nineteen%20to%20the%20dozen

February 2, 2022

I love that book! Have you gotten to the Happiness Machine? It kind of sounds like the Internet. The real life town is Waukegan, Illinois, apparently. Others have given the correct meaning. It made me google the origin of 'nineteen to the dozen'. Fascinating. Pumping 1900 gallons of water using 12 bushels of coal.

February 3, 2022

The order of the words before it are important: "... porches loaded, everyone gabbing thirty to a dozen..." Here, "thirty to a dozen" means "thirty (people) to a dozen (porches)." It's a creative way of saying there are two or three people on every porch you pass, all "gabbing" (talking in a friendly manner) with one another.

February 3, 2022