If they become infected, splanginating fractures of the posterior mesonuncular bone may cause pongulated mithritis of the overlying blenoid veins. Therefore, physicians treating these injuries need to check frequently for flubosis of the epithymial joint and truncal glabosis.
Dr. Seuss’s book You’re Only Old Once contains humorous mock professional jargon. The book is about an elderly gentleman’s visit to a medical clinic for a physical examination. Mock medical nonsense is posted on funny signs in the hallways of the clinic. The signs point the way to Optoglymics, Dermoglymics, and Nooronetics.
Honest John, the fox in Walt Disney’s animated film classic Pinocchio, spoke mock professional jargon. Honest John posed as a doctor to lure the little puppet into a life of sin on Pleasure Island. He diagnosed Pinocchio with “compound transmission of the pandemonium with percussion and spasmodic fabric disintegration” and “complicated syncopation of the dilla-dilla.”33
Only experts in relevant technical knowledge can distinguish mock professional jargon from the real thing. For example, are sulfoprotium prioxide, bandekleinic acid, and methylenic-hydrozochloride chemical compounds or nonsense? Only someone well versed in chemistry can tell. This helps explain how impostors pass themselves off as attorneys, doctors, or scientists. Laypersons cannot distinguish impostors’ nonsense versions from actual professional terminology.
exercise
Mock Professional Jargon
If they become infected, splanginating fractures of the mesonuncular bone may cause pongulated mithritis of the blenoid veins.
1. Write an original example of mock medical nonsense.
2. Introspect, then record your feelings and impressions about the mental process of writing mock medical jargon.
To review, we developed a typology that takes three different structural levels of nonsense into account. Namely, we examined the underlying structural principles that all types of nonsense have in common. We analyzed structures that are compounded of multiple distinct types of nonsense, and we showed that nonsense can be modeled on any structure of ordinary language. In the process, an interesting psychological effect related to various types of nonsense has become visible.
Nonsense of each type produces some characteristic effects of the structure upon which it is modeled. Nonsense can be modeled on virtually any structure of language, and when it is, the nonsense, despite being meaningless and unintelligible, re-creates some effects characteristic of that structure. For example, a nonsense name sometimes produces a vague mental sense of a corresponding person or entity bearing the name. A nonsense date can create a sense of an indeterminate day, month, or year. A nonsense definition can create a convincing sense that a meaningless, unintelligible word has a meaning. Nonsense questions can make people strive to find meaningful answers, and mock professional jargon can sometimes persuade a layperson that an impostor is a rocket scientist or a doctor or an attorney.
In other words, nonsense mimics some effects of the form of intelligible language upon which it is modeled. Apparently, then, when there is no meaning, the form of language takes precedence over the content or some properties of particular structures of language transfer onto their corresponding types of nonsense. Discussing the effects of nonsense, or how nonsense affects people, naturally leads us to another form of language, one that produces curious, useful, and pleasant effects.
Figurative Nonsense
Like nonsense, figures of speech serve as the special effects of language. As Aristotle said, “Midway between the unintelligible and the commonplace, it is a metaphor which most produces knowledge.” Figures of speech add beauty, color, energy, and emphasis to what is said or written. Metaphor, simile, oxymoron, alliteration, onomatopoeia, personification, irony, and hyperbole, to cite examples, are figures of speech. Experts in literature and rhetoric also know of dozens of other common but lesser-known figures of speech that work “undercover,” without being recognized.
Figures of speech stir up feelings. Accordingly, they are common in poetry, fiction, advertising, sermons, political speeches, and other language intended to please, challenge, or persuade people. Figures of speech are also common in everyday conversation, and people use them automatically, without thinking about them.
Nonsense can be modeled on practically any figure of speech. Since there are dozens of figures of speech, that means there are dozens of potential new types of nonsense. There are too many to discuss, but analyzing a few cases illustrates some underlying general principles. The works of authors like John Taylor, Lewis Carroll, and others are a rich source of examples of unusual, nonsensical figures of speech. Such authors often used figures of speech to enhance the delightful effects of nonsense.
Lewis Carroll’s character of Humpty Dumpty is a famous example of how a figure of speech can be transformed into nonsense. Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty is a personification of the figure of speech known as aposiopesis. Aposiopesis is breaking off in mid-sentence, leaving a thought suspended in mid-air. For example, an angry farmer says to an intruder, “Get off my land, stranger, or I’ll—” Aposiopesis is effective for making veiled threats that leave a lot to the listener’s imagination.
Or, just as he dies, a character in a movie says, “I buried the treasure under the—.” People die in mid-sentence more often in movies than they do in the real world. Aposiopetic deaths sometimes do occur, though, and they are not merely a literary device.
Or, at a wedding banquet, the groom’s father stands to toast his son. He raises his glass, looks at his son, and says, “I am so happy for you, I—” and he breaks down in sobs. In cases like this, aposiopesis indicates that the speaker is choked up with emotion and cannot continue to speak.
Or, a man rambles on and on, talking about his philosophical principles. Finally, an exasperated friend interrupts and says, “And your point is—?” The friend’s aposiopetic question is meant to focus the man’s attention on some specific thought or topic. An aposiopetic question invites the listener to complete the sentence.
Virtually everyone recognizes those scenarios, and they recognize that pattern of breaking off in mid-sentence as something they have encountered many times in the past. They also acknowledge, though, that they had not thought about it until someone pointed the pattern out to them. And almost nobody knows that it is a figure of speech known as aposiopesis.
They never thought about it before and they never heard the word. Yet, when shown examples of aposiopesis, they instantly recognize them as something they have encountered many times before. That process is the hallmark of the preconscious mind, as it is known to psychiatrists. In other words, the preconscious mind harbors a considerable body of knowledge that people almost never think about consciously. Not only do people harbor preconscious knowledge about aposiopesis, but also about three or four dozen other figures of speech whose names only experts in literature and rhetoric recognize.
Figures of speech in advertising, political rhetoric, literature, drama, courtroom speeches, and news reports resonate strongly with people in their preconscious minds. Hence, figures of speech can enhance the effects of nonsense. Again, Carroll’s use of Humpty Dumpty to personify aposiopesis exemplifies how a figure of speech can be transmuted into nonsense. Humpty Dumpty recited a nonsense poem with several aposiopetic lines, such as: