Argy-bargy, bow-wow, bye-bye, claptrap, heebie-jeebies, hubbub, humdrum, shilly-shally, willy-nilly.

These are all examples of a phenomenon called reduplication.

It occurs in words which consist of two or more similarly-spelt sections. The parts are often the same (as in bye-bye) and they frequently rhyme (as in argy-bargy and rat-tat-tat) or they only differ by a small number of letters (like shilly-shally).

Many reduplications rhyme, because they either repeat the same syllable (as in knock-knock) or simply replace the initial letter or letters (as in willy-nilly).

Why are words reduplicated? In ancient Greek it was done to indicate the past tense of a verb, and some other languages use reduplication for such purposes as changing the tense or signifying a plural. In Malay, raja means a king but raja-raja means kings.

In English, reduplication occurs for a huge variety of reasons.

Most basically, it is used onomatopoeically to imitate or suggest a particular sound, like clip-clop, pitter-patter, tee-hee, tick-tock and tut-tut.

The hubble-bubble pipe is a kind of hookah in which the smoke passes through water, making a bubbling sound. The shoes called flip-flops got their name from the sound they made, and a knock-knock joke always starts with someone mysterious knocking at a door. The campaign to encourage drivers to wear seat-belts used the catchphrase “Clunk-click, every trip” very effectively.

Several birds get their reduplicated names from their calls, like the bobolink, chiffchaff, hoopoe and peetweet.

The different sounds of musical instruments are captured in reduplicated combinations like hurdy-gurdy, oom-pah-pah (the characteristic sound of a brass band) and tarantara (for a trumpet).

From Indian languages we adopted tom-tom for a deep-sounding drum, which can also make the sound boom-boom (adopted by Basil Brush to signal the end of a joke).

Music and dance give us plenty of reduplications, as in boogie-woogie, can-can, cha-cha-cha and the Hokey-Cokey.

Many songs have reduplicated titles to make them more catchy — Achy Breaky Heart, The Frim-Fram Sauce, Goody-Goody, Mellow Yellow, Plink-Plank-Plunk, Splish Splash, Steady Eddie, Stupid Cupid, Super Trooper, Yakety Yak — not forgetting the Itsy-Bitsy Teeny-Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini and Johann Strauss’s Trish Trash Polka.

A song called Zoot Suit, written in 1942, included the line: ‘I want a Zoot Suit with a reat pleat, with a drape shape.’ Mary Whitehouse was outraged when Chuck Berry (pictured) sang a song called My Ding-a-Ling, which may have had a sexual connotation. But reduplication has been used time and again to veil sexual meanings, as in hootchy-kootchy, jij-a-jig and rumpy-pumpy.

Farmer & Henley’s Slang Dictionary gives flip-flap and roly-poly as slang terms for the penis, while knick-knack and whim-wham can mean “the female pudend”.

Chick-flick was originally used to mean a film showing female sexuality primarily for the titillation of men, although nowadays it usually signifies a film made to appeal to women.

Honky-tonk means a low-class saloon or club, sometimes frequented by prostitutes. Viewers of comedian Dick Emery on TV will remember his sexually-ambiguous character whose catchphrase was “Hullo, honky-tonk!”

The noisy element of reduplication is used to suggest a tumult or disorderly argument, as in argy-bargy, hubbub and hurly-burly. The sense of disorder is also found in such coinages as higgledy-piggledy, hotchpotch and zig-zag.

Reduplication may also occur because of our instinctive liking for rhyme and alliteration. This attraction is noticeable from a very early age in children, who like the sound of such reduplicated forms as bye-bye, choo-choo, dada, din-din, gee-gee, mama and wee-wee.

And, of course, characters in the children's TV series Teletubbies are called Tinky Winky and La-La. Yogi Bear’s best friend was called Boo Boo. The more recent children’s television series In the Night Garden includes people called Igglepiggle and Makka Pakka. And we have all heard of Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin — and Andy Pandy.

Nursery rhymes and children’s stories and songs often contain reduplications, like Georgie-Porgie, Hickory Dickory Dock, Hitty-Pitty, Humpty Dumpty, Milly-Molly-Mandy and Polly-Wolly-Doodle.

The old folk-tale about the chicken who thinks the sky is falling on him is full of rhyming names: Chicken Licken, Henny Penny, Goosey Loosey, Ducky Lucky, etc.

Several games have reduplicated or rhyming names, like I Spy and ping-pong. The American name for noughts and crosses is tick-tack-toe.

Other games that you may not know are handy-dandy (in which one player tries to guess in which hand the other player is holding a small object); hinchy-pinchy (which the Northumberland Glossary of 1893 describes as a game where boys hit each other with increasing force!); snip-snap-snorum (a card game); and wiggle-waggle (in which players “waggle their thumbs at a word of command”).

When I began investigating reduplication, I didn’t realise that English uses this process so frequently. There is still more to say on the subject, so I will conclude the subject next month.

Meanwhile, bye-bye, ta-ta, night-night and chin-chin!

Tony Augarde is the author of The Oxford Guide to Word Games (OUP, £14.99) and The Oxford A to Z of Word Games (OUP, £4.99)