Bert Vaux, currently a professor of Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Foreign Languages and Linguistics at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, formerly at Harvard, has done a remarkable amount of study on the productive shm-reduplication that can be used dismissively or mockingly, and the regional variations of it.
You can visit his website and find surveys on this and many other active linguistic surveys along the left rail:
Bert Vaux and surveys
And, yes, his photo does blink on occasion. It is not your imagination!
Eve Merriam wrote a wonderful poem with the theme of reduplication:
By the Shores of Pago Pago
Mama's cooking pots of couscous,
Papa's in the pawpaw patch,
Bebe feeds the motmot bird,
and I the aye-aye in its cage,
Deedee's drinking cups of cocoa,
while he's painting dada-style,
Gigi's munching on a bonbon
(getting tartar on her teeth),
Toto's drumming on a tom-tom,
Fifi's kicking up a can-can,
Jojo's only feeling so-so
and looking deader than a dodo,
Mimi's dressing in a muumuu,
Nana's bouncing with her yo-yo,
stirring batter for a baba,
Zaza doesn't make a murmur,
Kiki hopes her juju beads
will help to ward off tsetse flies,
Lulu's looking very chichi
in a tutu trimmed with froufrou:
does all this mean our family's cuckoo?
Very nice. Thanks.
Is it Zig-Zag Shmig-Zag, Zig-Zag Zig-Shmag, or Zig-Zag Shmig-Shmag?
Since you ask, it is the only one that sounds remotely right - Zig-Zag Shmig-Zag. Though I cannot think of a time that it would come up with a phrase like "zig-zag". "Shmig-shmag" is just not worth the effort to pronounce it right.
The only proper response to any sentence that accuses the speaker of zig-zagging (whether in logic or driving) is either "Don't talk back to me, you putz, or I'll wallop you from here to Kingdom Come!" or "Just shut that big fresser mouth of yours and leave the driving to me!".
I've been collecting reduplication for a few years now. My list isn't nearly as impressive as that poem, but here are some of the English terms I'm found. Ok, here are ALL the terms I've found. No doubt y'all can add to the list:
"Action Jackson"
bee's knees
boogie-woogie
bric-a-brac
chick flick
chit-chat
crinkum-crankum
ding dong
dingaling
dream team
easy-peasy
fancy-shmancy (etc)
fat cat
fiddle-faddle
flim-flam
flotsam and jetsam
Frick and Frack
fuddy-duddy
fun in the sun
Georgie Porgey
heyday
hugger-mugger
jibber-jabber
knick-knack
loosey-goosey
mai tai?
make or break
mish-mash
the mouth of the south
namby-pamby
okey-dokey (-smokey, -pokey)
party hardy
Piggley-Wiggley
pilpul
pish tush
plain-Jane
riff-raff
roly-poly
rough and tough
rough stuff
screwed, blued and tattooed
singsong
snail mail
Stop & Shop
teeter-totter
tell-tale
tie dye
used and abused
walky talky
willy nilly
wing ding
zig-zag
I'm definitely adding some from that poem, though—not foreign words like "tsetse", and I don't think I'll allow "cocoa", but "tom-tom" for sure.