Yodel the News: Here's the First Clip from 'The BFG' (Exclusive)

Like Dr. Seuss, Roald Dahl had a true gift for manufacturing bizarro words. In his 1982 classic The BFG, the odd phraseology comes to us via the titular big guy, whose version of our vocabulary is close enough to understand, yet disparate enough to be sublimely wackadoo. Human beings are “human beans.” Delicious is “scrumdiddlyumptious.” Hippopotamuses are “hippodumplings.”

The Big Friendly Giant’s words come alive in the new Steven Spielberg-directed movie version, with Oscar winner Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies) playing the eponymous role.

Above, you can watch the first clip released from the film, which finds The BFG in Giant Land explaining to Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) why he kidnapped her from her London orphanage.

“The first thing you would be doing, you’d be scuddling around, yodeling the news that you were actually seeing a giant, and then there would be a great rumple-dumpus, wouldn’t there? And all the human beans would be rummaging and whiffling for the giant what you saw and getting wildly excited. And then they’d be locking me up in a cage to be looked at with all the squiggling hippodumplings and crocadowndillies and jiggyraffes.”

Makes perfect sense, actually.

The BFG opens everywhere July 1. Watch the trailer: