Many are the modes of linguistic expression that brighten the human experience, from the evocative stirrings of sublime poetry to the heart-pounding inspirations of great oratory. Language is the cord between us all, glorious and binding, for better or worse.
We can say, however, that some modes of such expression get better press than others. We exalt them all, from the State of the Union to stand-up comedy, but some have failed to achieve the notoriety of their peers – in particular, the word salad.
Today, more than ever – perhaps owing to the unfettered proliferation of social media – we find more word salad on the public buffet than ever before, and observe more gutsy determination in its purveyors than one would have thought possible. Word salad is everywhere – in Oscar acceptance speeches, in talk show banter, in presidential debates, in the Congressional record.
It requires only a modest application of contemplation to realize that those who produce these often-sumptuous delights are achieving something worthy, at times, of our deepest admiration – for word salad can be as diverse as the trade paperback market, as riveting as modern dance, as complex as progressive rock.
Let’s start by defining our terms. Word salad is a phenomenon which is obvious to the observer when presented in context, without actual definition, kind of like porn – we know it when we see it. Even so, we can formalize it, as Google does:
word salad – a confused or unintelligible mixture of seemingly random words and phrases, specifically (in psychiatry) as a form of speech indicative of advanced schizophrenia.
This will get us rolling. We will come to see that the forms that follow are so varied that there is really only one requirement: that there be words.
Here are some palatable examples:
George W. Bush: “When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world, and you knew exactly who they were. It was us vs. them, and it was clear who them was. Today, we are not so sure who the they are, but we know they’re there.”
And one from his dad:
“And let me say in conclusion, thanks for the kids. I learned an awful lot about bathtub toys – about how to work the telephone. One guy knows – several of them know their own phone numbers – preparation to go to the dentist. A lot of things that I’d forgotten. So it’s been a good day.”
And one from his vice president:
“You take the United Negro College Fund model that what a waste it is to lose one’s mind or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.”
These are simple examples that ease one into the concept, as they are not too far afield of what we think of as normal human communication. They consist of, for the most part, complete sentences. They contain phrases which seem to express actual thoughts, but do not make sense when taken as a whole. That’s word salad at its most benign.
Pushing forward, however, we can see that there is a taxonomy to word salad, and the deeper we go, the less sense it makes...
Redundancy. Some word salad emerges from the mangling of sentences as a thought struggles to push out into the air, like a calf in birth, only to become twins...
Luca Brazi, to the Godfather: “Don Corleone, I am honored and grateful that you have invited me to your daughter's wedding, on the day of your daughter's wedding.”
Ronald Reagan: “Nuclear war would be the greatest tragedy, I think, ever experienced by mankind in the history of mankind.” And his classic, “What would this country be without this great land of ours?”
Dan Quayle: “I can’t remember with any degree of recollection what I said.”
George Bush, Jr.: “A key to foreign policy is to rely on reliance.”
Stating the obvious. Some words become salad through simple waste, like chips and pretzels, perfectly appropriate in context, spilled on a couch during a ball game...
John McCain: “I think we agree, the past is over.”
Bush Jr.: “You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.”
Quayle: “This election is about who’s going to be the next president of the United States.”
Concatenation. From time to time, a speaker will cut-and-paste one sentence onto another, without completing the first one and without clarifying the second...
Reagan on US missile placement: “I don’t know but what maybe you haven’t gotten into the area that I’m going to turn over to the secretary of defense.”
Spontaneous coinage. Some words emerge out of nowhere, having never been spoken before, mangled in the brain prior to their utterance by random concatenation or improvisation...
Bush Jr.: “They misunderestimated me!”
Inigo Montoya Syndrome. Sometimes words aren’t so much invented as utterly misapplied, as when Inigo says in The Princess Bride, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means...”
Quayle: “Republicans understand the importance of bondage between the mother and child.”
Accidental antiphrases. ‘Antiphrases’ refers to the art of saying the opposite of what you mean, in such a way that your meaning is obvious. When you do this accidentally, you simply sound stupid...
Quayle, on El Salvador: “We expect them to work toward the elimination of human rights.”
Bush Jr.: “Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”
And this: “I’m telling you there's an enemy that would like to attack America, Americans, again. There just is. That's the reality of the world. And I wish him all the very best.”
And this: “First, we would not accept a treaty that would not have been ratified, nor a treaty that I thought made sense for the country.”
And here, where he achieves an accidental antiphrase by slipping in a double negative:
“Redefining the role of the United States from enablers to keep the peace to enablers to keep the peace from peacekeepers is going to be an assignment.”
Irrelevance. Sometimes two thoughts are joined together that have nothing whatsoever to do with one another...
Bush Jr.: “Yesterday, you made note of the lack of my talent when it came to dancing. But nevertheless, I want you to know I danced with joy. And no question Liberia has gone through very difficult times.”
And this: “I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.”
Incoherence. Sometimes words emerge that defy categorization, but just sound ridiculous...
Bush Jr.: “Illegitimacy is something we should talk about in terms of not having it.”
And this: “We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur.”
Categorical confusion. And, sometime, the speaker is simply confused about the facts, or the subject under discussion...
Bush Jr.: “We’ve got to work with Nigeria. It’s an important continent.”
Quayle: The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. No, not in this nation, but in World War II. I mean we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century, but in this century's history.”
Poor choice of words. Sometimes word inadvertently become a salad because the speaker has dropped in random croutons...
Bush Jr.: “What we Republicans should stand for is growth in the economy. We ought to make the pie higher.”
Bush Jr. again, asking audience members to imagine themselves “working hard to put food on your family.”
Bush Jr. again: “This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses.” (He meant to say missile launches, though there’s a certain delicious irony in the outcome.)
Dyslexia. Some people are possessed of brains that simply have trouble processing words. As Bush Jr. emerges above as a word salad champion overall, leaping from one style to another, we note the observation of Christopher Hitchens:
“I used to have the job of tutoring a dyslexic child, and I know something about the symptoms,” he said, “so I kicked myself hard when I read the profile of Governor George W. Bush, by my friend and colleague Gail Sheehy, in this month's Vanity Fair. All those jokes and cartoons and websites about his gaffes, bungles and malapropisms? We've been unknowingly teasing the afflicted. The poor guy is obviously dyslexic, and dyslexic to the point of near-illiteracy.
“I know from my teaching experience that nature very often compensates the dyslexic with a higher IQ or some grant of intuitive intelligence. If this is true for Bush it hasn't yet become obvious.”
Is Bush Jr. actually dyslexic? Let the gentle reader decide...
“Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”
“As yesterday's positive report card shows, childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured.”
“There is madmen in the world, and there are terror.”
That’s the simple stuff, and such gaffes are mere appetizers – word salad-lite. True word salad is a meal in itself, and goes beyond cognitive glitches and minor blunders in comprehension.
It’s the sumptuous run-on sentence, which requires one to know many words, to be capable of many sentences, but to misunderstand the role of punctuation, as in the case of Vice President Kamala Harris:
“Our world is more interconnected and interdependent, that is especially true when it comes to the climate crisis, which is why we will work together, and continue to work together, to address these issues, to tackle these challenges, and to work together as we continue to work operating from the new norms, rules, and agreements, that we will convene to work together on to galvanize global action, with that I thank you all. "
It’s savory stream of consciousness, of which former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin proved herself a master:
Asked by Charlie Rose to comment on the priority of public education in her home state of Alaska: “Well, absolutely it is. For the state of Alaska, though, our biggest issues are energy issues, so that we can pay for a world-class education system up there. Our energy issues surround the fact that Alaska is very, very wealthy in reserves, oil and gas reserves, but we are not given the ability right now, or I guess the permission, by some, to go ahead and develop those resources and flow that oil and gas into the rest of the United States of America to help secure our United States so that we can quit being so reliant on foreign sources of energy, but a clan safe domestic supply of energy being produced in Alaska. Again we are very rich in the reserves, we just need that ability to tap them and flow into hungry markets our oil and our gas, so development of our resources.”
But even Palin pales in comparison to Donald Trump, in this case answering a question from Fox News darling Sean Hannity about his priorities in a potential second term:
“Well, one of the things that will be really great: you know, the word experience is still good. I always say talent is more important than experience. I’ve always said that. But the word experience is a very important word. It’s a very important meeting. I never did this before, I never slept over in Washington. I was in Washington I think 17 times, all of a sudden I’m the president of the United States, you know the story, I’m riding down Pennsylvania Avenue with our First Lady and I say, ‘This is great.’ But I didn’t know very many people in Washington, it wasn’t my thing. I was from Manhattan, from New York. Now I know everybody. And I have great people in the administration. You make some mistakes, like you know an idiot like Bolton, all he wanted to do is drop bombs on everybody. You don’t have to drop bombs on everybody. You don’t have to kill people.”
And finally, we arrive at world-class word salad – succulent, delectable offerings so muddled, so incoherent, so detached from the expression of actual thought that they tease the psychiatrist’s diagnosis of full-on dementia. As a guide, we have the example of Monty Python, who offered up this exchange:
Eric Idle: Ham sandwich, bucket and water plastic duralex rubber McFisheries' underwear. Plugged rabbit emulsion, zinc custard without sustainance in kippling-duff geriatric scenery, maximizes press insulating government grunting sapphire-clubs incidentally. But tonight, sam pan bombay bermuda in diphtheria rustic McAlpine splendor, rabbit and and futfutfooey jugs rapidly big biro ruveliners musk-green gauges micturate with nipples and tiptoe rusting machinery, rustically inclined. Good evening and welcome. Henry Woolf: Helloo. Idle: Foreskin mousetrap view Mount Everest tintray lobotomy in England? Woolf: Saddleback, saddleback. Lechery billboard kettlebum simpering snuff masticated bowelside handset lemonade enterprisingly apartheid rubberized plumbjoint curvaceously mucking squirrels! Idle: I see. Rapidly piddlepot strumming Hanover peace pudding mouse rumpling cuddly corridor cabinets? Woolf: Sick in a cup! Toejam whisper tap sunderland shower-curtain, ice wallpaper cups grounchingly rubberking wrapped butter kissing-feathers definitely pheasantry daughter successfully douche dinner-bottom. Idle: Machine-wrapped, with butter? Woolf: Machine-wrapped, with butter. Idle: So, nail-attacking butterfly-clouts reputedly. Without I might galvanize sugar, elbow-wrenchingly heartfelt until purse-playing perspicaciously rattled mandibled on asinine shoestring-drawn two lost three butter-machismo whenever cobbled therein. Good night. Woolf: Good night.
Who can clear such a high bar? Our two salad champions immediately above now contend for the top slot.
Palin distinguished herself even as she stepped out onto the national stage in 2008, in her first major interview. Veteran newsman Charles Gibson asked her how she felt about the Bush Doctrine, which of course she didn’t know. He told her, then repeated the question.
Gibson: Do we have a right to anticipatory self-defense? Do we have a right to make a preemptive strike again another country if we feel that country might strike us?
Palin: Charlie, if there is legitimate and enough intelligence that tells us that a strike is imminent against American people, we have every right to defend our country. In fact, the president has the obligation, the duty to defend... Now, as for our right to invade, we're going to work with these countries, building new relationships, working with existing allies, but forging new, also, in order to, Charlie, get to a point in this world where war is not going to be a first option. In fact, war has got to be, a military strike, a last option... In order to stop Islamic extremists, those terrorists who would seek to destroy America and our allies, we must do whatever it takes and we must not blink, Charlie, in making those tough decisions of where we go and even who we target.
Gibson: I got lost in a blizzard of words there. Is that a yes?
But even here, Palin manages sentence fragments that contain more-or-less relevant keywords. Below she serves up a more titillating concoction, in what Andy Borowitz calls “her signature style, featuring run-on sentences that sound like a spilled bag of Bananagrams...”
“Well, I am here because like you I know that it is now or never. I’m in it to win it because we believe in America, and we love our freedom. And if you love your freedom, thank a vet. Thank a vet, and know that the United States military deserves a commander-in-chief that our country passionately, and will never apologize for this country. A new commander-in-chief who will never leave our men behind. A new commander-in-chief, one who will never lie to the families of the fallen. I’m in it, because just last week, we’re watching our sailors suffer and be humiliated on a world stage at the hands of Iranian captors in violation of international law, because a weak-kneed, capitulator-in-chief has decided America will lead from behind. And he, who would negotiate deals, kind of with the skills of a community organizer maybe organizing a neighborhood tea, well, he deciding that, ‘No, America would apologize as part of the deal,’ as the enemy sends a message to the rest of the world that they capture and we kowtow, and we apologize, and then, we bend over and say, ‘Thank you, enemy.’ We are ready for a change. We are ready and our troops deserve the best. A new commander-in-chief whose track record of success has proven he is the master at the art of the deal. He is one who would know to negotiate.”
Great stuff! But even a word salad gourmet like Palin must inevitably bow to the master chef – Trump, here quoted in a 2015 Dallas campaign speech:
“Wow. Amazing. Amazing, thank you. So exciting. Do you notice what’s missing tonight? Teleprompters! No teleprompters. We don’t want teleprompters. That would be so much easier: We read a speech for 45 minutes, everybody falls asleep listening to the same old stuff, the same old lies. So much easier. So, you know, I have a little debate coming up on Wednesday. I hear my... let’s call them opponents. Can I call them opponents? We’re allowed to do that, right? You know, New York was very nice to you people last night, you know that, right? Did they hand you that game? They handed it! I said, I am going to have the friendliest audience -- sit down -- I am going to have the friendliest audience. So I wasn’t sure, was I happy or was I sad? But Jerry Jones is a great guy, and he deserves everything he gets, frankly. And you know, another great guy is Mark Cuban. And I think, you know, he’s been talking about maybe doing this himself. And I think he’d do a great job. We don’t have the exact same feelings about where we’re going, but that’s okay. But Mark was great. You know, he called me, like, literally a few days ago, and he said, ‘You know, if you want to use the arena’ -- which by the way is a beautiful arena this a great arena -- and Dirk is a fantastic player he’s just a wonderful player -- and the Mavericks have been fantastic and it’s just a great team -- but he said, ‘You know, if you want to use the arena.’ And I said, ‘Mark, when?’ He said ‘How ‘bout Monday night?’ It’s like, that was like in four days. And you had a big holiday in between. And he said, ‘They really like you in Dallas, they really like you in Texas, maybe you can get a lot of people.’ Because we were coming here, and we thought maybe we’d get a thousand people, but we never get a thousand anymore, it’s always, like, the same thing. You know, we went to Alabama. We started off with a 500-person ballroom. And after about two minutes -- look at all these guys -- paparazzi, look at this we’ve got everybody here. We started off, by the way, with a 500-person ballroom, and after about two minutes the hotel called up begging for mercy. ‘We can’t do it!’ They were inundated, so we went to the convention center, and that was 10,000 and that was wiped out in about an hour. So we went to a stadium, we had 31,000 people, which is by far the largest, they say, like, ever, for an early primary, and that’s probably true.”
Now that’s word salad worthy of Le Cordon Bleu!
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