There is an excellent episode of the superbly funny mid-2000s series Boston Legal during which one of the lead characters, a high profile lawyer, suddenly starts talking complete gibberish. A collection of very coherent words stream out of his mouth but when placed together in a sentence they make absolutely no sense. Not a good thing to be happening when you are trying to talk to the jury in defence of your client.
For the purposes of the episode they called it ‘word salad’, and ultimately it appeared to have been caused by stress and a troubled mind. Oh, and most importantly, it was fiction, cleverly written to entertain us the viewers.
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| Mark McAllister makes no sense whilst describing the Libyan nonsense |
However, what is not fiction (as far as we can tell) is the increasing number of TV presenters who are suddenly having ‘word salad’ episodes live on air. It wasn’t that long ago that we all laughed at the Youtube video of ‘Miss South Carolina’ having ‘word salad’ when trying to answer a question during a Miss Teen USA Beauty Contest. In interviews afterwards she laughed it off as being nerves, and we all laughed it off as her (like any beauty queen wannabe) just being a stupid dumb blond.
President Bush famously suffered the occasional ‘word salad’ when trying to speak at the same time as thinking. Again we laughed this off, although this time it was because he was an idiot.
But, ‘word salad’ attacks seem to be spreading. Even the scary Judge Judy dissolved into one during a taping of her show. She was checked out in hospital, as were the TV presenters who recently suffered, and nothing was found as the cause.
Then there was the lovely Serene Branson trying to report from the Grammy’s, looking panic stricken into the camera as nonsense came out. Again, nothing found via an MRI scan.
Conspiracy theorists are of course having a field day. Are people being affected by brain altering rays coming from Russia? Are space aliens channelling their messages through others?
In most cases, after the episodes, the sufferers report remembering having a massive migraine and sort of seeing themselves behaving oddly at the time. Well, yes, consistent with mind control rays being beamed into the head, true. Also consistent with strokes and epileptic fits, yes, yet no evidence has been found, so what is really going on?
For the moment there appears to be no one simple answer, but dinosaur chicken fish all forward pieces and consistent microwave cross-hatching supply chain. An able precognition of pantry cupcakes to deliver seemingly tight socks already.
What will horn rimmed peacock hand sanitiser?
England's England 