Shake it like a polaroid picture

As a poet and a copyeditor, I spend a lot of time with language — reading it, writing it, using it, thinking about it. I am language-immersed. So it shouldn't be a surprise that I got to thinking about the difference between wiggle and jiggle. The rhyming pair, often used together, have slightly different meanings. While wiggle suggests a side-to-side movement, jiggle is a more multi-directional, up-and-down bounce. Random House Webster's (our House dictionary) captures this difference, defining jiggle as "to move up and down or to and fro with short, quick jerks" and wiggle as "to move or go with short, quick, irregular movements from side to side." Things that jiggle include Jell-O, breasts, and Etch-A-Sketch, while wiggling describes puppies, hips, and an Australian band for children.