Please, please, please don't talk over each other on the View.

Hear either of you, so please don't talk over each other,” BlitzerĮmail to Barbara Walters of the View, 2014 or so: “If you're both screaming at each other, the viewers won't be able to Wolf Blitzer to Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders during a 2016 primary television debate: A Google search of 'please don't talk over each other' will be productive, e.g.,: This expression is frequently heard on television talk shows-the host pleading with the guests not to talk over each other. On the other hand, babble seems to come to English from the German word babbelen, perhaps from Latin babulus or Greek barbaros, and probably originated as onomatopoeia of baby-talk. Babel was taken from the Bible, and was a translation of the Hebrew name for a city that was referring to Babylon. It is interesting to note that although babel and babble sound similar and have similar definitions, they are not etymologically related. In common usage, it just refers to the incomprehensible noise of many people talking. More about the myth of the Tower of Babel can be found on Wikipedia. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth. 9That is why it was called Babel - because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. 7Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”ĨSo the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 6The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Talk rapidly and continuously in a foolish, excited, or incomprehensible way.īabel is particularly appropriate in the case that there are multiple conversations being spoken simultaneously in more than one language, but the multi-lingual aspect of it is only to more closely match the Biblical metaphor.ĥBut the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. ‘ the answers were difficult to hear amid the babble of conversation’Īnd its verb form specifically calls for rapid speech: The sound of people talking simultaneously. The mass noun definition of babble makes it a near synonym to babel: This difference in precision is likely unimportant in your example usage, since the usage context should sufficiently make clear the intended meaning. While perhaps more commonly used, babble is not specific to multiple people, and connotes rapidity in speech which is not part of your description.

However, the word simultaneously is a good single word to replace the phrase at the same time. They were talking over each other, and the teacher could not understand them. However, it seems to be a close match to the situations you posit. The phrase talk over each other is most common in situations where more than one person are trying to make their point to either each other or to the same listener, but are not letting each other finish before speaking themselves. Hearing only babble, the teacher could not understand them. Hearing only babel, the teacher could not understand them. Not to be confused with babble, although it can be used as a synonym. If you are interested in a single word, consider babel:Ī confused noise made by a number of voices.

Other words for multiple people