Talk:Schizophasia

Untitled
In reply to Ken, some clarifications...

To the best of my understanding, word salads aren't always gramatically correct. At the higher-functioning side of schizophrenic psychosis, you'll get word salads full of tangentially related concepts but missing a few connective words and prepositions and so forth. Towards the lower-functioning side, you're left with a jumple of words which, typically, are still conceptually related but with very little other than that to link them. And the connections get weaker and weaker. You can't really definitively say whether they always are or aren't grammatically correct, since the degree of correctness varies with the morbidity of the disease. And not necessarily directly, either.

Intentionally producing nonsense doesn't as word salad. The point of word salad in general is that it's not something controllable, due to defects in processing and organizing language. It, arguably, takes a higher degree of organizational ability than even standard speech to create the palindrome noted in your example.

Thanks for agreeing about the pop-culture references!

Jkoebel 09:20, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

A few examples on the article would be nice

Are word salads always at least semi-correct grammatically? For example: "Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas" doesn't make any sense, but it is grammatically correct. However, "Blue does runs shaky lovely very" isn't. Could both be considered word salads?

Is it necessary to have all of the pop-culture references? They take up almost half of the entry, when I think this could be quite a bit more formal.


 * "Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas" is a famous palindrome, and is contrived specifically to be grammatical but not to make sense. Does intentionally producing nonsense count as a word salad? Ken Arromdee 17:22, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the pop-culture references to legitimate culture (Boston Legal) are acceptable; the ones to Homestar Runner however are less so. This is important to reference where it appears in pop-culture because the positive symptoms of severe mental illness are very rarely, if ever, seen or experienced by a large majority of the population. By providing a point of reference, it allows an abstract concept (the words on this page) to be embodied into something real and immediate (Alan Shore having a drink splashed in his face because of his inability to speak correctly.) I'd limit it to three, and to mainstream references -- subcultural references have about as much use as no reference at all. Jkoebel 05:40, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Since word salad in computer science seems to have a fair following, laughable as it may be, I've set up a disambig page and a redirects to this version and the other one -- psychiatry coming first, of course. Jkoebel 20:26, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

What, exactly, makes Homestar Runner not "legitimate popular culture?" A huge segment of the country is connected to the Internet, and as the generation which has known the Internet for most of its life as a source of information ages and grows, Internet phenomena like Homestar Runner become more and more relevant.


 * I've been editing the Homsar article on the Homestar Runner Wiki (link to article), and I'm basically arguing that most of what Homsar says is not word salad. Some of it definitely qualifies, but most of what he says is just mostly out of context with whatever else is going on in the scene.  Homsar seems to have some sort of method to his madness - most of his speech is not entirely random or meaningless, even in the context of the scene.  I intend to do an in-depth study of his speech soon to try to identify the patterns and see if he really does qualify as speaking in word salads. &mdash;  K i e f e r S k u n k  ( talk ) &mdash; 21:48, 7 July 2006 (UTC)


 * And as a follow-up, I've completed this analysis and shown that Homsar does NOT, in fact, speak in word salads. Of all the things he's ever said on the site to date, only two of them could be construed as word salads, and even then, there are ways to make them make sense without stretching too much.  As a result, I removed Homsar's reference in the pop culture section - I believe I've conclusively disproven this assertion. &mdash;  K i e f e r S k u n k  ( talk ) &mdash; 08:00, 9 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The first part of the second paragraph did not make complete sense to me. I made some changes; I hope the edits don't corrupt the meaning. Famspear (talk) 22:08, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

In popular culture
Characters in popular culture that are known to speak in word salads include:
 * Members of the Xaositect faction of the Planescape setting in the Dungeons & Dragons game.
 * Ed in the animated cartoon series Ed, Edd and Eddy.
 * The Bursar and Foul Ole Ron from the fantasy book series Discworld by Terry Pratchett.
 * Happy Noodle Boy from Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.
 * Alan Shore from Boston Legal in the episode "Word Salad Days" (Season 2, Episode 21). http://www.boston-legal.org/21-wordsaladday/ep21-wordsaladday.shtml
 * In an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the human and Bajoran crew members on the station are affected by a viral form of aphasia, which causes them to speak in word salads.
 * Word salad plays a prominent role in the episode "Failure to Communicate" (Season 2, Episode 10) of House.

Word salads have also been used by lyricists. For example: John Lennon once described The Beatles' Come Together as a "word salad song."

It is commonly believed that the character Homsar (from the Homestar Runner web cartoon series) speaks in word salads. However, a detailed analysis of his speech patterns reveals that, while nonsensical, his speech is not evidence of this particular mental disorder.


 * Probably the primary reason Homsar's speech isn't evidence of a mental disorder is that Homsar ISN'T REAL. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.188.38.32 (talk) 21:25, 14 April 2007 (UTC).

Listed to the right?
Um...something is wrong here. This is nothing listed to the right of the article, as the article itself says. I hope this does not mean this article was plagirized.

Lots42 04:58, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Art and Psychosis
I'm unsure about where to put this comment, but this page seemed as good as another: Joyce and Shakespeares' works have an abundance of word salads and neologisms. Frankly, I'd be curious as to see what artist couldn't be retrospectively diagnosed with a thought disorder. I think that an article needs to be made comparing and contrasting views on the artistic mind and the psychotic mind, because it would seem that they are inextricably related. Unicornlover224 (talk) 19:02, 15 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I came here to post something similar, Unicornlover. How does one differentiate between true schizophasia and what may be an artistic event? 70.138.218.110 (talk) 19:48, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Sarah Palin?
Why is Sarah Palin listed under "See Also"? --Melboy (talk) 14:38, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Because she has nothing to do with schizophasia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.21.161.34 (talk) 17:25, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Examples of Word Salad
I restored some examples of word salad that were removed at some point after febuary 2007. Examples are needed, but rather than delete the old ones without creating new ones, I'd rather editors argue for the urgency of why these should be removed without replacing them with other examples. Mystyc1 (talk) 01:50, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
It may need to be brought to attention that this is a commonly used internet meme before it was added to the wiki as an example. R. Giskard Reventlov (talk) 02:32, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * True. That makes it even more relevant. 188.60.14.168 (talk) 21:12, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Charles Manson
Could you say that Charles Manson is 'suffering from word salad'? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.248.84.50 (talk) 22:45, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Time cube?
Should we mention timecube in this article? --216.67.8.188 (talk) 00:44, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. I would like to question its relevancy to the article. If it does have any relavency at all, then this should be made more apparent. 160.5.245.238 (talk) 15:43, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Drawing a Line
To anyone who wants to place cultural references to schizophasia, please limit those references to depictions of schizophasia. A character on a TV show who speaks nonsense may be eccentric without having a thought disorder. There may be plenty of culturally important works which discuss or highlight schizophasia, but there should be a clear and verifiable link to mental health.

In response to the question "Could you say that Charles Manson is 'suffering from word salad'?," I would say that no one could make the diagnosis of thought disorder from afar. He certainly exhibits some propensity to make far-fetched connections, but whether that is due to an inability to maintain a "stable" thought process is up for debate. He has not been found "criminally insane" but then again he defended himself.

I would imagine he would gather a few diagnoses with different psychiatrists as the man is visibly disturbed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.54.42.11 (talk) 07:00, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Psych 101 Review
Your sentences were a nice contribution to the article, but you need a citation, maybe finding a source that links both schizophasia and schizophrenia together. Tophermith (talk) 21:23, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Derogatory
'Word Salad' is widely considered derogatory nowadays (2016). I can provide further reference if I need to. 137.124.161.17 (talk) 00:51, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Scary lead
By leading with scary diagnoses, the article may instill an inappropriate level of fear regarding the symptoms. Hackwrench (talk) 22:41, 25 November 2016 (UTC)