Types of Nonsense
The continual discovery of fresh types of nonsense, unsystematic though their classification and mysterious though their explanation is too often allowed to remain, has done on the whole nothing but good.
J. L. Austin
There are numerous distinct, different types of nonsense. To begin the inquiry, we will consider three patterns or types that clearly emerge in both voluntary and involuntary nonsense. In the process, we will discuss distinctive structural characteristics and assign a name to each type, for there is not a standard system for categorizing, describing, and naming varieties of nonsense. A system of typology—a list of types—is necessary for a rational study of any subject. Accordingly, this chapter will develop such a system. Then, later, that system will help us comprehend the many strange sights we will see on our journey through the hidden world of nonsense.
Throughout this chapter you will have opportunities to practice some exercises. Students completed these exercises in my university courses and seminars on nonsense. The objectives of the exercises are to activate hidden cognitive faculties of the mind, increase critical thinking abilities, and inspire creative expression.
Categorical Nonsense
Categorical nonsense consists of sentences that are sound in their grammatical structure. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions are in their correct grammatical positions in relation to each other. Furthermore, sentences of categorical nonsense consist entirely of meaningful words that anyone could look up in a dictionary.
Nonetheless, categorical nonsense is meaningless and unintelligible, and it doesn’t convey coherent thoughts to the mind. The meaningful words within the sentence do not fit together meaningfully, despite being in correct grammatical order. Within a sentence of categorical nonsense, the component words are somehow incommensurable or discordant, and they fail to make sense in that particular arrangement.
Categorical nonsense is meaningless and unintelligible because it mismatches subjects and predicates, or things and attributes. That is, categorical nonsense ascribes properties to a thing that are not compatible with a thing of that kind. For example, consider the sentence, “A smiling square root repeated as one necklace an electric limp of potatoes.”
Now, a square root is a number, and it can be positive or negative, odd or even, large or small. However, there is no intelligible sense in which a square root could be said to be smiling. Similarly, to talk about a sleeping square root, singing square root, mournful square root, or mauve square root would also be to talk categorical nonsense.
Now consider the sentence, “A scholarly hiccough musically baked numerical stares in a gnawing circle.” A hiccough, as a bodily reflex, can be loud or barely audible, distracting or annoying, a normal occurrence, or a sign of a serious illness. However, it makes no sense to say that a hiccough is scholarly. Only a human being can be scholarly, not a hiccough. In other words, the combination “scholarly hiccough” is unintelligible, meaningless categorical nonsense.
Similarly, other words that are paired in the sentence make no sense in combination. The adverb “musically” doesn’t fit the verb “baked.” The adjective “numerical” does not fit together conceptually with the noun “stares,” and “gnawing” and “circle” do not convey an intelligible meaning as combined in that sentence.
In sum, sentences of categorical nonsense fit together grammatically, but not conceptually. I dub this type “categorical nonsense” because it works by transgressing what philosophers know as categories. In philosophical usage, categories are the most basic kinds of things that exist. The theory of categories is complex. Furthermore, mismatches between things and attributes in categorical nonsense need to be explained on a case–by-case basis. Still, it is usually easy to see that categorical nonsense is meaningless and unintelligible.
exercise
Holiness purses the vestigial lipstick of spontaneity.
A smiling square root sang an electric rainbow.
1. Write an original example of a categorical nonsense sentence.
2. Introspect and record your feelings about this type of nonsense.
Self-Contradictions
Self-contradictions are meaningless and unintelligible because they take back what they say in the very act of saying it. They are grammatically correct sentences that contain only words that are meaningful individually, yet end up meaning nothing because they cancel themselves out.
Contradicting oneself is comparable to taking a step forward only to end up back at the starting point. The net motion forward is zero. Similarly, in a self-contradiction, the net meaning is zero. This type of nonsense is present when C. G. Lichtenberg says, “I thank God that he lets me be an atheist.”
To philosophers and logicians, self-contradictions are a primary or quintessential type of nonsense, for the logic that ancient Greek philosophers devised is geared to true-or-false statements of literal meaning. Self-contradictions defeat the purpose of making a statement, however, and end up saying nothing at all because they take themselves back.
Self-contradictions resemble intelligible statements in their grammatical structure, though. Grammatically, “I am naked under my clothes” looks like “I am sweating under my clothes,” yet the self-contradiction negates itself and says nothing, while the other is a meaningful statement. In other words, despite their correct grammar, self-contradictions are not a workable formula for making intelligible statements.
C. I. Lewis (1883–1964), an eminent logician, made an astonishing discovery about self-contradictions. Specifically, Lewis proved that any conclusion whatsoever would follow logically from a self-contradiction. His proof is a transparently valid, deductive argument of only four simple, logical steps. Fully understanding the proof requires some background knowledge of formal logic. Still, the implications of the proof can be simply stated.
Suppose, for instance, that we begin with the self-contradictory premise that “a bachelor has been married to a young spinster for twenty years.” Then, we could prove any conclusion we might desire in a few indisputably valid steps of logic from that self-contradictory premise. We could prove that purple kangaroos live on Mars or that only 58 people live in Washington, DC, or whatever else we might choose.
Therefore, accepting self-contradictions would bring down the entire structure of rational knowledge by destroying the distinction between truth and falsehood. The law of non-contradiction is one of the three fundamental laws of logical thought propounded by Aristotle. Accepting self-contradictions would abolish reason and all the knowledge that has been built by following the principles of logical reasoning.
Another way of putting Lewis’s argument might be to say that a self-contradiction opens up infinite possibilities. Perhaps that is why a bold self-contradiction can make an effective beginning for a book. A self-contradiction attracts readers’ interest and attention. The opening line of Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities is a prime example: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” A self-contradiction like that can prepare readers’ minds to accept anything and everything that might follow.
exercise
That cannibal you men just ate was the last one in this county.
I’m not an actor, but I play one in the movies.
1. Write an original example of a self-contradiction.
2. Introspect and record your feelings of this type of nonsense.
Near English
Near-English nonsense is defined by three characteristics. First, near-English consists of sentences that conform to the grammatical rules of English. Second, the sentences contain, along with ordinary English words, a smattering of made-up, meaningless words. Third, the meaningless words nonetheless sound like English words, not like French words, German words, Italian words, or Spanish words, for meaningless near-English nonsense words are concocted using the phonetic principles of word formation in English.
Consider this declarative sentence: “A shining flamooma quickly turbled and then easily smibbled the five sarbic glusters away.” The sentence structure is sound according to the rules of English grammar. Hence, we can deduce from the sentence structure which parts of speech the concocted nonsense words are. Specifically, “flamooma” and “glusters” are nouns, “turbled” and “smibbled” are verbs, and “sarbic” is an adjective.
Now, we could apply the same rules of formulation that define near-English mutatis mutandis to, for instance, French. That is, we could start with the correct French grammatical format for declarative sentences. Next, we could put in some ordinary meaningful French words in their correct grammatical positions. Then, we could add a smattering of made-up nonsense words that, because of their phonetic structure, sound like French words. Those steps would produce near- French nonsense.
We could also apply those rules of formulation mutatis mutandis to other languages, such as German, Spanish, and Italian. In that way, we would create near-German nonsense, near-Spanish nonsense, and near-Italian nonsense. Therefore, the potential for this type of nonsense exists in practically any language.
Each individual writer’s near-English nonsense words sound and look a little different from those of other individuals; we could say that each individual nonsense writer has a distinctive style of writing near-English. Each writer’s style leaves a unique imprint on that writer’s near-English nonsense words. For example, consider the following near-English nonsense poem by Ogden Nash:
The sharrot scudders nights in the quastron now,
The dorlim slinks undeceded in the grost.
Appetency lights the corb of the guzzard now,
The ancient beveldric is otley lost.21
In my university courses on nonsense, students were able to recognize individual writers’ distinctive styles of writing near-English nonsense. In one exercise, students looked at three lists of near-English nonsense words written, respectively, by Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, and Ogden Nash, and then they looked at several near-English nonsense words without knowing which author wrote them. Most students were able to easily identify which near-English nonsense word was written by which particular author.
exercise
Distinctive Styles of Writing Near-English Nonsense
A simplified version of the original exercise is reproduced below.
|
Edward Lear |
Lewis Carroll |
Ogden Nash |
|
scroobius |
brillig |
quastron |
|
meloobius |
galumphinx |
undeceded |
|
ombliferous |
wabe |
grost |
|
borascible |
mimsy |
corb |
|
slobaciously |
borogores |
guzzard |
|
himmeltanious |
frabjous |
beveldric |
|
pomskillious |
uffish |
treduty |
Now look at the three near-English nonsense words below. Which word belongs with which author?
1. slithy
2. dorlim
3. crumboblious
The majority of students correctly matched “slithy” to Lewis Carroll, “dorlim” to Ogden Nash, and “crumboblious” to Edward Lear. Distinctiveness of style in writing near-English does not pertain solely to professional nonsense writers, either. In written exercises, my students created their own original examples of most types of nonsense we studied. In one exercise, students wrote original near-English nonsense sentences. When I compared hundreds of students’ written exercises, it was apparent that an individual’s style of near-English was recognizable, for the various non-English words that the individual created all resembled each other. In other words, a person’s style of near-English is a sort of fingerprint, somehow reflecting that individual’s mind. As we move forward, additional, similar connections between nonsense and the mind will emerge.
exercise
A shining flazoma easily turbled five sarbic muffards away.
Some lazy ink trunes spoogled dardly on the green lummuck.
1. Write an original example of a near-English sentence.
2. Introspect, then record your feelings and impressions about this type of nonsense.
The three types that we analyzed up to this point are only a small fraction of the types of nonsense that occur. I found more than seventy types in my own four-and-a-half-decade study of the subject. However, a list of seventy-plus types would be too long for any practical purpose and too difficult to learn or remember.
A system of classification that takes three different levels of nonsense into account is simpler and more comprehensible. First we will consider the structural principle that all types of nonsense have in common. Second, we will discuss how different types of nonsense can be combined. Then, third, we will see how a corresponding type of nonsense can be built around practically any structure of ordinary language.
Nonsense of each type follows some rules and breaks others in its own distinctive combination. The three types of nonsense that we discussed above follow the grammatical rules that govern ordinary sentence structure. That is, categorical nonsense, self-contradictions, and near-English conform to standard grammatical rules for sentences.
Each of these three types of nonsense also breaks some other standard rules and conventions of ordinary language. Hence, categorical nonsense violates the rules and regulations as to which properties belong with which things. A number, for instance, can be large or small, positive or negative, cardinal or ordinal, but it cannot be lazy, intelligent, or self-indulgent, and that makes sentences like “A self-indulgent, lazy 19 greeted an intelligent 7” categorical nonsense.
Self-contradictions violate the basic rules that define making a meaningful statement. A statement says something that is true or false, while a self-contradiction takes itself back and says nothing at all.
In addition to obeying standard grammatical rules of sentence formation, near-English also follows standard phonetic rules of forming English words. However, near-English violates the fundamental rule or convention that when we speak, we use only actual meaningful words with standard dictionary definitions. In sum, categorical nonsense, self-contradictions, and near-English follow some rules of language and break other rules of language, each in a distinctive combination.
exercise
The moping shoes of logic silently screamed chibbled nanks
of colorless blue rainbow food.
Droonly dreaming bread electrically chastled a married bachelor.
1. Write an original sentence combining near-English, categorical nonsense, and self-contradiction.
2. Introspect, then record your feelings and impressions of writing this sentence.
All types of nonsense reflect this same underlying structural formula of following some rules and breaking others in a distinctive and unintelligible combination. That is the universal structural principle of nonsense of all types and the center and circumference of the concept of nonsense itself. In effect, this universal structural principle is what nonsense is—the essence of nonsense. Using this structural principle, we can characterize each distinct type of nonsense by specifying which rules of language it follows and which rules of language it breaks. Each type of nonsense, then, can be designed as a unique and distinctive combination of rule-following and rule-breaking.
Nonsense and Cartoons
Cartooning, too, follows some rules and breaks other rules to create powerful aesthetic and psychological effects. That is, cartoonists follow some rules of realistic drawing and break other rules of realistic drawing to entertain, amuse, inform, and inspire their readers. Nonsense is structurally akin to cartoons, and that reminds us of the affinity mentioned earlier between nonsense writing and cartooning.
Edward Lear, Dr. Seuss, and Shel Silverstein, for example, drew cartoons to illustrate their books of nonsense poetry for children. To say the least, then, it is interesting that these same artists would be talented in two different forms of following rules and breaking rules. At least two familiar types of nonsense occur only in cartoons or in graphic form: mock writing and nonsense letters.
Mock Writing
Mock writing is a pictorial form of nonsense often found in cartoons. Mock writing consists of predominantly meaningless, unintelligible marks like squiggles, scrawling, doodles, or sometimes just parallel straight lines. The meaningless marks look like writing that is somewhat out of focus or too far away to be seen clearly enough to read. Mock writing resembles writing, but it conveys no meaningful content or message.
The purpose of mock writing in cartoons is to create an illusion or impression of writing. Sometimes cartoonists draw in a few actual letters among the meaningless marks to enhance the illusion. Also, the placement of the meaningless marks in the cartoon shows us they are supposed to represent writing. Cartoonists inscribe mock writing on some other figure in the drawing—a flip chart or a poster on a wall or lamppost. The convention signals that something is supposedly written there, but we are not to try to decipher it. The meaning does not matter because there is no meaning.
Smudgy equations and mathematical symbols scrawled on a blackboard are another familiar form of mock writing. To most people, they epitomize the incomprehensibility of modern science. In fact, they are probably the best-known cartoon icon of unintelligibility.
Nonsense Letters
Nonsense letters are meaningless, unintelligible marks that imitate the general appearance of alphabetic letters. However, they do not belong to any actual, existing alphabet. The person who invents such marks has actual letters in mind as a sort of model. Still, nonsense letters are not exact replicas of actual letters.
Some children with developmental disabilities draw nonsense letters. When they are asked to draw letters of the alphabet, they draw meaningless marks that resemble letters instead. This shows that they have a vague idea of what letters look like but are unable to copy them.
Dr. Seuss made up an entire nonsense alphabet of meaningless letters, such as “yuzz.” In On Beyond Zebra he explained, “There are things beyond Z that most people don’t know.” He needed extra letters because:
In the places I go there are things that I see
That I never could spell if I stopped with the Z.
I’m telling you this cause you’re one of my friends.
My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends.
Dr. Seuss’s purpose was humor. However, people have created nonsense letters and nonsense alphabets for fraud, hoaxes, or imposture, using concocted nonsense letters to create meaningless, unintelligible inscriptions on stones. Fake alphabets have been used to create manuscripts, with the resulting inscriptions or manuscripts looking like they were written in some exotic, unknown alphabet. Hoaxers’ productions sometimes kept archaeologists or linguists busy for years trying to decipher nonsense.
Integrating Nonsense
Here we will investigate cases of combining multiple types of nonsense into a more complex unit.
Nonsense of several types can be combined into one structure. This section will draw examples from multiple types of nonsense from Lewis Carroll’s classic Alice books that Carroll wove into a unified work of literature. Similarly, as we shall see, other nonsense writers also commonly put a variety of types together into a single poem or story.
Apparently, though, readers almost never realize that such a work is composed of more than one distinct type of nonsense. That is what I observed in my courses on nonsense. People seem to have an undifferentiated experience even when several distinct types of nonsense are used in a poem.
The same students immediately realized that there were different types of nonsense in the poems once I pointed it out to them. Then it seemed so obvious to them that they wondered why they did not notice it before. Several types of nonsense can be combined in a single grammatical sentence. Consider the sentences below:
The moping shoes of logic silently screamed chibbled nanks of colorless blue rainbow food.
Droonly dreaming bread electrically chastled a married bachelor.
The sentences are fairly short grammatically correct declaratives, yet each sentence uses three different types of nonsense—categorical nonsense, self-contradiction, and near-English. Therefore, diverse types of nonsense can be integrated, even on a small scale, to function as a unit.
Nonsense of a corresponding type can be modeled on any structure of ordinary language, and nonsense occurs at every organizational level of language. There are levels of language: phonemes, syllables, words, sentences, recipes, stories, essays, plays, novels, scientific texts. Then, additionally, there are special compartments of language reserved for medicine, the law, science, and their brands of professional jargon. The complexity ranges up to the level of entire languages—French, Italian, Greek, English, and all the others. Each and every one of those elements, levels, compartments, and languages can potentially serve as a format for creating a corresponding type of nonsense.
Thus far, we have looked at three types of nonsense at the level of sentences: categorical nonsense, self-contradictions and near-English. Later, we will come back and consider some additional types of nonsense that occur primarily in sentence form. Meanwhile, this section will examine a bonanza of new types that are inherent in the multilevel structure of nonsense. We will begin with the smallest type of nonsense that exists.
Nonsense Syllables
|
bez |
bup |
dax |
fip |
gan |
haj |
|
jad |
jeg |
mof |
pog |
sab |
nud |
A nonsense syllable is a meaningless, unintelligible combination of letters formed by putting a vowel between two consonants. A nonsense syllable must not form an actual word or standard abbreviation. Hence, “cab,” “can,” and “cap” are not nonsense syllables since they are actual words. “Feb” and “aug” are not nonsense syllables since they are standard abbreviations for months of the year.
Nonsense syllables are perhaps the smallest quanta of meaningless language that exists. They are an important type of nonsense for scientific inquiry. For example, psychologists use nonsense syllables in experiments on learning and memory. Also, communications technicians use certain nonsense syllables known as “logatoms” to test telephone circuitry.
Nonsense syllables take the place of words in scat singing and doo-wop music. Scat singing is a form of jazz in which singers substitute improvised, meaningless verbiage for words of songs. Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Al Jarreau are noted for scat singing. These great artists sing songs that in whole or in part consist of nonsense syllables instead of words.
Ella Fitzgerald’s song “Flying Home” consists solely of nonsense syllables. Still, some who listened to the song in my courses said they could make out meaningful words occasionally. The students enjoyed this exercise because they discovered that no two listeners ever heard the same words in the song, and they realized that the supposed words came from their imagination.
jad
jeg
pog
sab
nud
1. Write some nonsense syllables.
2. Introspect, then record your feelings and impressions about the mental process of writing nonsense syllables.
Nonsense Names
Proper names are words that denote individual persons or places; for example, “Henry,” “Jane,” and “Paris.” Some think of proper names as the simplest kind of word that exists. After all, there seems to be a transparent, one-to-one relationship between a proper name and the person or thing it denotes. Besides, proper names are an indispensable fixture of everyday conversation. Thus, we use a man’s proper name to refer to him, address him, summon him, identify him in a photograph, or, originally, to christen him. Constant usage makes us feel we understand proper names perfectly.
American society allows a lot of latitude in bestowing names on people. I could concoct original, crazy-sounding names: “Abezagaffa,” “Mazzakakka,” and “Elvisimadonna.” Then I could legally bestow them on my infant children. Thereafter, these strange words would be the legal names of my children. They would not be nonsense names but actual proper names registered on birth certificates.
We can create nonsensical proper names in at least two ways, however. First, we can invent capitalized nonsense words like “Maybotrene,” “Adaluncatif,” and “Torbunkle.” Then, without ever bestowing them on anyone, we can drop them into isolated sentences as follows:
Maybotrene is never here.
The sect of the son of Adaluncatif will prevail.
Torbunkle is not in trouble.
Such sentences do not provide enough contextual information to make clear who Maybotrene, Adaluncatif, or Torbunkle might be. Invented capitalized words are not meaningful proper names unless we flesh out characters to bear them. Instead, these bizarre, unintelligible words constitute nonsense names.
Still, they look like proper names, for they are capitalized and they occupy the same grammatical positions in sentences that meaningful proper names do. Moreover, the conventions that govern proper names are deeply ingrained in our minds from constant usage. Hence, despite being meaningless, nonsense names induce a weird, indecipherable sense of a person or entity. Something strange happens when we read sentences like “The sect of Adaluncatif will prevail.” We experience a vague idea of an indeterminate personage or being that somehow corresponds to “Adaluncatif.” Later, we shall see that this phenomenon is of considerable historical significance.
We can also create nonsense names by capitalizing abstract nouns and then positioning them grammatically like proper names. Lewis Carroll used this technique in both his Alice books. The passages below are prime examples:
Alice sighed wearily. “I think you might do something better with the time,” she said, “than wasting it in asking riddles that have no answers.”
“If you knew Time as well as I do,” said the Hatter, “you wouldn’t talk about wasting IT. It’s HIM.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Alice.
“Of course you don’t!” the Hatter said, tossing his head contemptuously.
“I dare say you never even spoke to Time!”
“Perhaps not,” Alice cautiously replied, “but I know I have to beat time when I learn music.”
“Ah! That accounts for it,” said the Hatter. “He won’t stand beating. Now if you only kept on good terms with him, he’d do almost anything you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o’clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons: you’d only have to whisper a hint to Time, and around goes the clock in the twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner!”22
“I see nobody on the road,” said Alice.
“I only wish I had such eyes,” the King remarked in a fretful tone. “To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance too! Why it’s as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!”23
As nonsense writing, it is funny. However, various philosophers took this odd way of talking seriously. They apparently assumed that all words get their meanings by being names of things. This assumption was the root cause of much nonsense in the form of meaningless philosophical speculation. For example, the philosopher Heidegger wrote as though the word “nothing” were a proper name. He said, “Nothing nothings itself.” The sentence is nonsensical, but Heidegger and his disciples thought it expressed a profound truth.
Nonsense Dates
Orientation to time is an essential cognitive faculty. To function in modern society, we need to know which day, month, and year it is. The names of the days of the week and months of the year are a vital part of language. We begin to comprehend this system of terminology at about five or six years of age. Then, thereafter, we use it practically every day for the rest of our lives.
It is possible to create nonsense that sounds like these familiar words. For example, “Septober the eighth” and “Fumbleday the twentieth of Juluary” sound like dates. We can even make up sentences like “Magoona the Great died in late Febrember, 284 B.D.”
The ordinary terminology of days, weeks, months, and years is indelibly imprinted in our minds, so a nonsense phrase or sentence like the above example produces a vague sense of an indeterminate date.
Dr. Seuss’s hilarious book Octember the First utilizes these principles. The book promises kids they can have anything and everything they want when Octember the first rolls around. We do not have to go that far to create a nonsense date. “June the ninety-third” and “the sixty-first day of December” do not make sense, either.
We went from nonsense syllables to two types of nonsense that can occur as single words, namely, nonsense names and nonsense dates. Next, we consider some types of nonsense that are made by putting multiple different words together. Note that we can do that without necessarily having to create an actual sentence.
Meaningless Word Strings
By eliminating syntax, we can string meaningful words together into unintelligible sequences, then punctuate the resulting incoherent processions of words to look like sentences. Such meaningless, unintelligible word strings are devoid of grammatical order, so they do not convey coherent thoughts to the mind.
Normally, when we speak or write, the mind automatically puts words together into proper grammatical arrangement. Hence, meaningless word strings are a difficult type of nonsense to compose. The process taxes the mind because grammatical order seems to keep inserting itself unbidden. Many of my students reported that writing meaningless word strings was a vexatious, frustrating experience for them, yet they also said that it was interesting and informative. The process made them aware of the complex automatic mental processes that underlie ordinary speech.
exercise
Green it thankful swings if how zest.
Money transcendence any explodes hooray category if.
1. Write an original meaningless word string.
b. Introspect, then record your feelings and impressions about the mental process of writing a meaningless word string.
Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, and Dr. Seuss all used types of nonsense that are based on specific parts of speech. First we will look at a type of nonsense that plays tricks with conjunctions; then we will examine a type that uses pronouns unintelligibly.
Conjunctive Nonsense
Conjunctions are words used to connect words, phrases, clauses, or sentences. “And,” “or,” “but,” and “because” are conjunctions.
Normally, context makes it clear how the things joined by a conjunction are supposed to be related. Hence, it is easy to comprehend the sentence “My dog and cat fight every day.” Nor would anyone have any trouble comprehending a sentence like “My Uncle Hamperd ate fish and chips and bacon and eggs and bread and butter and had pie and ice cream for dessert.”
However, Lear’s and Carroll’s nonsense verses use conjunctions that have no intelligible relationship to each other. The mind draws a blank when trying to figure out how rainbows and knives or muscles and hives, or hurdles and mumps or poodles and pumps, could possibly be related. Similarly, putting shoes, ships, sealing wax, cabbages, and kings together without providing a unifying context makes no sense. The mind is unable to establish any meaningful linkages among such wildly disparate items such as “forks and hope” and “smiles and soap.”24
Non-junctive nonsense is unintelligible because it uses conjunctions to put things together that have no business being put together that way. It is a common technique of nonsense writers. In fact, it helps structure the most familiar nonsense verse in English. In the nursery rhyme that follows, no context is provided that enables us to see how the cat and the fiddle are supposed to be connected. Nor can we figure out what the little dog’s laughing has to do with the dish and the spoon running away together:
Hey diddle diddle
The cat and the fiddle
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed to see such sport
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
Nonreferential Pronouns
They told me you had been to her
And mentioned me to him.
She gave me a good character.
But said I could not swim.
He sent them word I had not gone,
(We know it to be true)
If she should push the matter on
What would become of you?
…
If I or she should chance to be
Involved in this affair,
He trusts to you to see them free
Exactly as we were.
My notion was that you had been
(Before she had this fit)
An obstacle that came between
Him, and ourselves, and it.
Don’t let him know she liked them best,
For this must ever be
A secret kept from all the rest,
Between yourself and me.25
Nothing whatsoever in the verbal or situational context of Carroll’s poem tells us who or what “they,” “he,” “she,” “it,” “you,” or “I” are supposed to be. Consequently, the sentences, though grammatically correct, run on and on without making a point. A mild confusion or disoriented state sets in, and the reader’s mind floats free.
Uncle Hamperd and Aunt Florene went downtown and bought a dozen doughnuts and they brought the doughnuts home. He ate ten of the doughnuts, she ate one, and they had one left. So, they divided it in half, but he ate both halves.
This story makes sense because the referents of the pronouns are clearly identified. However, Carroll’s verses above are nonsense because there is no way of telling what the pronouns supposedly denote. This particular technique of nonsense writing is hard to master. Participants in my courses and workshops experienced little trouble writing near-English nonsense, categorical nonsense, and numerous other types; in fact, they found it interesting and enjoyable. However, they experienced considerable difficulty writing nonreferential pronouns. They described the process as frustrating and mind-numbing.
Numerative Nonsense
Numerative nonsense is meaningless, unintelligible language that is modeled on number terminology. This particular type of nonsense is difficult to classify, for numerative nonsense occurs in several distinct kinds. The same problem also arises with some other types of nonsense, though. Therefore, we need to add another precept to our system of classifications.
Nonsense of one type may occur in multiple distinct subtypes. Numerative nonsense is found in at least four distinct subtypes. First, actual numbers can be put into a context in which there is no possibility of determining what they are supposed to enumerate. The number words just dangle in a void. Lewis Carroll produced interesting examples of this type of nonsense; consider the verse below:
I gave her one, they gave him two,
You gave us three or more.26
This sentence invites the question of what “one,” “two,” or “three” is referencing. Nothing in the verbal or situational context enables us to answer that question. So, here, the words “one,” “two” and “three” do not enumerate anything.
Similarly, in Through the Looking-Glass, the Red Queen invites Alice to a banquet. When she arrives, the guests sing a song, purportedly to greet her. The chorus of the song runs, “And welcome Queen Alice with thirty-times-three,” and then, “And welcome Queen Alice with ninety-times-nine.”27 The trouble is nothing enables us to answer the questions “thirty-times-three what?” or “ninety-times-nine what?” And so Alice is left wondering what those numbers are supposed to enumerate.
Or, secondly, one can force meaningful number terminology into combinations or arrangements that do not make sense. Examples would be “This is the eleventy-tenth time you’ve been late this week” or “There is a 185 percent chance of rain tomorrow.”
Then, thirdly, one can create meaningless, unintelligible verbiage that looks and sounds like number terminology. For example, “Uncle Hamperd is worth five batrillion, three fazillion, twenty-nine bombastillion dollars and sixteen cents.” Carl Barks was a master of this type of nonsense.
Or, fourthly, one can write nonsense in the format of numerical calculations or mathematical equations. For example, Dr. Seuss included an incomprehensible equation in The Cat in the Hat Songbook. According to the song “I Can Figure Figures,”
Twenty thousand turtles times ten tin tops
Plus fifteen billion buttons
Minus seven lollipops.
Divide by two bananas,
That makes eleventeen
French fries, noodles and a green string bean.
Next, we will consider two important types of nonsense that are based on specific constructions. For, to this point, the nonsensical sentences that we studied were, for the most part, declarative in their grammatical structure. However, strikingly different effects are created by nonsense in different grammatical formats.
Counterfactual Conditional Nonsense
Understanding the meaning of a sentence that begins with “if,” a conditional sentence, is sometimes tricky. This is especially so in the case of counterfactual conditionals, for the first clause of a counterfactual conditional statement expresses something contrary to the fact; for example, “If I had known.” Counterfactual conditions puzzle philosophers because it is difficult to explain how such statements could be meaningful or intelligible. Therefore, conditional statements of that kind are a particularly good format for creating memorable nonsense. As C. G. Lichtenberg said, “This is certainly one of the strangest combinations of words possible in human language: ‘If I had not been born, I would be free of all my troubles.’”
Counterfactual conditionals can be useful for shaping future behavior in light of past experiences. Hence, thinking “If I had a flashlight with me, we could have found our way home” is useful for planning future walks with the family. Counterfactual conditionals are also good for wishful thinking that avoids reality; for example, “If there had been one more number correct on that lottery ticket I bought last month, I would be on vacation in the Caribbean now.”
Some counterfactual conditionals have a paradoxical quality that challenges the philosophical mind. Also, counterfactual conditionals can foster whimsical thinking that is enjoyable for its own sake and often used for self-deception. Their puzzling paradoxical quality and their whimsical escapist quality make counterfactual conditionals an excellent format for creating entertaining and mind-stretching nonsense.
Nonsense Questions
Nonsense questions are a serious subject because of their effects on the mind. Nonsense that is grammatically formatted as an interrogative sentence sometimes adversely affects people’s thought processes and interferes with their logical reasoning. Accordingly, nonsense questions are particularly important in the search for rational knowledge, so it is not surprising that various great thinkers have weighed in on the topic of meaningless, unintelligible interrogatives. Unsurprisingly, they also expressed a variety of different opinions about how we ought to respond to nonsense questions.
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963), for example, was an eminent twentieth-century religious thinker and writer, and an author of children’s classics. He encountered plenty of nonsense questions as he pondered the spiritual dimension of life and observed that they are a pervasive phenomenon of religious thought. Lewis wrote:
Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable...Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask—half our great theological and metaphysical problems—are like that.28
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963), another modern pioneer of spiritual thought, expressed a similar opinion about nonsense questions. In doing so, he invoked Lewis Carroll’s famous nonsense riddle, or riddle with no conventional or adjoined answer: “Why is a raven like a writing desk?”29 This riddle is part of the Mad Tea Party in Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, and, as Carroll said, “The Riddle, as originally invented, had no answer at all.”30 Even so, what the answer might be soon became a popular topic of conversation and speculation, and almost a parlor game. Huxley compared the phenomenon to humankind’s philosophical and religious quest:
To a nonsensical question, one can make almost any answer one likes...It really makes no difference. My own belief is that all the riddles of the Universe, in the form in which philosophical tradition has presented them to us, belong to the why-is-a-raven-like-a-writing-desk category. They are nonsensical riddles, questions asked not about reality but about words. The devils whiled away their time discussing fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute: Job and Dostoevsky rack their brains over the wherefore of human sufferings. But they really might just as well have spent their time and energy over the question: “What is a mouse when it spins?”
The fundamental trouble with all theological and metaphysical speculation is the fact that, in the very process of becoming speculation, it almost inevitably becomes nonsensical.
Nonsense questions are often funny, too. Consider, for example, the following familiar children’s riddle: “An airplane crashed exactly on the border between two countries. In which country were the survivors buried?” Figuring out the self-contradiction solves the riddle and makes children laugh.
Dr. Seuss’s The Cat’s Quizzer is a little book of funny, wacky questions, asked just for laughs. Some of them are nonsense: “Are there more A’s or Z’s in the alphabet?” The book also asks, “There are flashlights for when it’s dark. Are there flashdarks for when it is light?”
Nonsense questions are used in intelligence work. This came to light in the 1980s as a result of a successful suit under the Freedom of Information Act. The outcome forced the CIA to release one of their secret interrogation manuals to the public.
In the photocopied pages of the manual that were released, much of the text was blacked out in that familiar CIA manner. What did come through was revealing, though, for it showed that the CIA used nonsense questions for interrogating suspected spies or double agents and breaking them down.
The power of nonsense questions comes from the fact that as children we learn that we are expected to answer when someone asks us a question. This lesson gets reinforced constantly for the rest of our lives. Hence, the interrogative mood lends a compelling quality to nonsense and makes people uneasy. They feel as though they are under an obligation to answer, even though the question makes no sense, so asking people nonsense questions is an effective method of pressuring them.
In effect, a question is part statement and part command. Accordingly, the familiar grammatical distinctions among the following four different types of sentences are oversimplified and cause confusion. For, actually, their distinctions are not as sharp, their definitions are not as accurate, and their functions are not as distinct as is generally believed.
Hence, according to standard grammatical definitions, a declarative sentence makes a statement or describes a state of affairs. An interrogative sentence asks a question. An imperative sentence issues a command or makes a request, and an exclamatory sentence expresses strong emotion.
In reality, however, the different grammatical structures of sentences and their corresponding different functions are mixed up, and they overlap. For example, questions and statements are alike in that they both convey information. Thus, the context or situation supplies some information that establishes the meaning of the question even when someone asks only “Who?” or “Why?” or “When?”
Questions and commands are also alike in that they both direct someone to say or do something in response. When we ask someone a question, for example, we expect an answer. When issuing a command, we expect someone to comply. Accordingly, there is always some residual imperative force in a question, even if it is meaningless and unintelligible. In fact, this helps explain the strange hold nonsense questions have on the mind.
exercise
Does the number nine prefer to bounce or bluster?
How many smufflepuffs can a voodle recite?
1. Write an original nonsense question.
2. Introspect, then record your feelings and the mental process of writing a nonsense question. How did the process differ from writing nonsensical declarative sentences?
Nonsense Definitions
A definition is a statement that tells what a word means. Clear definitions make communication possible. Hence, they are essential for rational inquiry and for the regulation of human societies. They are indispensable tools for science, mathematics, commerce, and law.
pomskizillious: The coast scenery may truly be called “pomskizillious” and “gromphibberous,” being as no words can describe its magnificence.
—Edward Lear
definition: God is the shortest distance between zero and infinity. In which direction? one may ask. ± We shall reply that His first name is not Jack, but Plus-and-Minus. And one should say: God is the shortest distance between 0 and ∞ in either direction.
—Alfred Jarry
Nonsense can be formatted to resemble definitions, as the above examples show. Nonsense writers make up these meaningless definitions to be humorous, and readers are then unlikely to mistake the humorous purpose.
Sometimes, though, nonsense definitions create convincing illusions that meaningless words make sense. In these cases they can retard the progress of knowledge or help perpetuate and maintain brutal regimes. Nonsense definitions often have played a leading role in religion, politics, philosophy, and science. In later chapters we will encounter particular examples of this important phenomenon.
Nonsense also can be modeled on language for giving instructions on how to do something or carry out a procedure. Now we will turn to a couple types of nonsense formatted as instructions. And they remind us, again, that a corresponding type of nonsense can be built around virtually any structure of ordinary meaningful language.
Nonsense Directions
Giving directions to someone on how to reach a distant place is a basic social and linguistic skill that is obligatory for almost everyone. Consequently, everyone is familiar with stock phrases used for giving directions, as in these examples: “Turn right on the next corner” or “Go straight on down this road and take a left turn at the third intersection.” As a result, people experience these phrases as familiar, even when they are used in a meaningless, unintelligible, nonsensical way.
Peter Pan told Wendy the way to Neverland using the nonsensical direction “Second to the right, and straight on till morning.”31 The words and phrases do sound like directions, yet neither Peter Pan nor the narrator, nor any other information in the novel, provides a context in which those words would make intelligible sense.
Other patterns could also be used for writing nonsense directions. For instance, we could put some meaningless near-English words into sentences along with the stock terminology used for giving directions. “Continue south on this highway until you come to a plausamus hossamedge on the left, then turn right at the next intersection” or “To reach a splendid sploafer like you’ve always dreamed of, walk five miles down this road and then platterate at the next monastrum.” Similarly, many other patterns and designs could also be used for writing nonsense directions. In other words, we could create, indefinitely, many distinct subtypes of nonsense directions.
Nonsense Recipes
Unintelligible nonsense can be designed to look like instructions for performing a procedure. In fact, nonsense could be modeled on practically any kind of set of instructions. Nonsense could be tailored to look like instructions for playing games, repairing machines, building airplanes, assembling toys, growing flowers, or performing scientific experiments.
Apparently, though, nonsense recipes are nonsense writers’ preferred subtype of meaningless, unintelligible instructions. Edward Lear wrote a mini cookbook of three nonsensical recipes. “To Make An Amblongous Pie” never explains what the main ingredient, amblongouses, are. Similarly, “To Make Crumbobblious Cutlets” offers no clue about how to find “4 gallons of clarified crumbobblious sauce.” Some of the directions for making crumbobblious cutlets are self-contradictory, too. The recipe says, “Procure some strips of beef, and having cut them into the smallest possible pieces, proceed to cut them still smaller, eight or nine times.” Then, just when the dish is apparently ready to be served, Lear’s recipe says to “throw the whole thing out the window.”
Dr. Seuss also wrote a nonsense recipe with a meaningless, unintelligible ingredient. The recipe calls for adding “a hunk of something…Hunk of chuck-a-luck, I think.”32 This recipe for Glunker Stew requires a nonsensical cooking utensil, too: “a special frazzle-spade.” Finally, the concoction needs to be “spuggled” in a mixer.
Evidently, then, a variety of different ingredients can be used for cooking up nonsense recipes. Or, more generally, nonsense can be laid out to look like a set of instructions for performing procedures of practically any kind. Furthermore, in my course exercises, students wrote nonsensical versions of various kinds of instructions for procedures by following patterns. Students in the courses were also able to write nonsense that imitated the appearance and sound of specialized technical language of various professions.
Mock Professional Jargon
Meaningless, unintelligible verbiage can be tailored to look and sound like the technical terminology of medical doctors, scientists, or attorneys. I wrote the below passage of mock medical nonsense to serve as an example of more professional jargon. This type of nonsense is usually created for comic effect or for the purpose of deception.
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
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:
The little fishes’ answer was
‘We cannot do it, Sir, because—’
…
And he was very proud and stiff:
He said, ‘I’d go and wake them, if—’
…
And when I found the door was shut,
I tried to turn the handle, but—34
Nothing in the context of the poem gives any clue as to what might conceivably follow the dashes and complete the sentences. Readers are left with no basis for imagining, even vaguely, what the missing information might be.
Humpty Dumpty is an ideal character for personifying this type of figurative nonsense, for when no intelligible basis is provided for reconstructing what sort of thing might follow the interruption, an aposiopesis can become nonsensical. In other words, there is no way to put a sentence that is a nonsensical aposiopesis back together again. Similarly, it is impossible to put a broken egg like Humpty Dumpty back together again.
In scenarios such as the farmer who menaced the stranger or the father at his son’s wedding, we can plausibly guess what sort of thing the speaker might have said next. In routine cases like those, an aposiopesis is intelligible, meaningful, and makes sense. However, the poem “Humpty Dumpty,” recited, excludes any hint as to how the aposiopetic sentences might be completed, and that made the sentences aposiopetic nonsense.
A literary critic who highly praised Carroll’s work nonetheless singled out Humpty Dumpty’s poem for some harsh words. He said that this particular poem is “not good nonsense.”35 Similarly, my students reported that the poem grated on their nerves, perhaps because of the repeated interruptions.
This kind of analysis could be made for many other figures of speech that writers like Lewis Carroll used nonsensically. For instance, Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) used alliteration to augment the effect of categorical nonsense in his poem “Nephelidia.” The title echoes the Greek word for clouds, and Swinburne’s alliteration magnifies the cloudy, misty, smoky, confusing effect categorical nonsense has on the mind. The lines below are typical of the poem:
From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn through
a notable nimbus of nebulous noonshine,
Pallid and pink as the palm of the flag-flower that flickers
with fear of the flies as they float.36
Metaphor is often cited as the quintessential figure of speech. Metaphors are figurative comparisons; they compare one thing to another disparate thing. We can understand a metaphor because we can potentially translate it into an equivalent literal meaning. If no equivalent literal meaning can be provided, an attempted metaphor lapses into categorical nonsense. Concrete examples below illustrate this principle:
Aunt Florene is a pillar of her community.
Uncle Hamperd is a pig.
Their son Lester is a time bomb.
Their house is an excrescence on the landscape.
The meanings of the metaphors above are transparent. We could rework each metaphor into more literal words that mean the same thing. We could substitute literal meanings for the metaphors.
Aunt Florene reliably helps others in her community, and they respect and look up to her.
Uncle Hamperd is lazy, greedy, and slovenly, and he eats too much food.
Their son Lester is an angry person who is bound to act out violently someday.
Their house is run-down and decrepit and surrounded by junk and high weeds in the yard.
Metaphors like these make sense to everyone. No problems arise when we try to rephrase them in literal terms. Sometimes the situation is not so straightforward. Consider the following sentences:
Aunt Florene is an ethereal banana.
Uncle Hamperd is a prancing abstraction.
Their son Lester is an iridescent equation.
Their house is a total potato.
The sentences look like metaphors. They are striking because they are puzzling, though, not because they express an interesting insight. The sentences show that when metaphors cannot be backed by literal equivalents, they turn into categorical nonsense.
To recap, understanding figurative meanings depends on being able to specify equivalent literal meanings. During the Watergate crisis, people instantly understood John Dean’s graphic metaphor, “A cancer is growing on the presidency.” Yet, unless one knows relevant background information, the metaphor appears to be categorical nonsense, for a governmental institution cannot have a physical ailment.
Similes are also figurative comparisons. Unlike metaphors, though, similes use the words “like” or “as” to make the comparison explicit. My favorite nonsense poem is composed primarily of unintelligible similes. Bishop Richard Corbet (1582–1635) wrote this astonishing work to serve as his epitaph. Each of its three stanzas consists of four nonsensical similes and ends in a self-contradiction. The first stanza is as follows:
Like to the thundering tone of unspoke speeches.
Or like a lobster clad in logic breeches.
Or like the gray fur of a crimson cat.
Or like the mooncalf in a slipshod hat;
E’en such is he who never was begotten
Until his children were both dead and rotten.37
Soraismic Language
Soraism is a figure of speech that mixes elements of more than one language, which sounds like a recipe for incomprehension, yet some soraisms do make sense. Consider the following sentence:
Hey, garçon, pour some more eau in my glass and bring moi deux more of those fried oeufs, s’il vous plait.
Anyone who understood both French and English would grasp the speaker’s meaning. Sentences like these may indicate ignorance or affectation, but at least they are meaningful and intelligible. Other times, however, soraisms are meaningless, unintelligible nonsense. For example, consider the following sentence:
Moi, deux some fried belle in garçon, and eoufs those my glass, s’il vous plait.
This sentence is meaningless nonsense to those who speak both languages. Accordingly, soraismic nonsense is a meaningless, unintelligible admixture of elements from two different languages. Writers sometimes use this formula deliberately to create nonsense.
Usually writers who create soraismic nonsense do so for its comic effect. For example, Edward Lear wrote a funny soraismic nonsense poem called “The Cummerbund.” The poem mixes English with words he heard while traveling in India. I placed an English translation beside each Indian word in the excerpt printed below. That way, it is easy to see that the combined effect of the English words and Indian words is nonsense.
She Sat upon her Dobie [washerman]
To watch the Evening Star
And all the Punkahs [fan] as they passed
Cried, “My! how fair you are!”
Around her bower, with quivering leaves.
The tall Kamsamahs [butler] grew,
And Kitmutgars [waiter at table] in wild festoons
Hung down from Tchokis [police or post station] blue.38
exercise
Moi, deux, some fried belle in garcon and eoufs those my glass, s’il vous plait.
1. Write an example of soraismic nonsense, mixing English and any other language with which you are familiar.
2. Introspect, then record your feelings and impressions about the mental process of writing soraismic nonsense.
Faux Language
Faux language is meaningless verbiage that mimics the phonetic characteristics of an actual known language. Faux language can be made to sound like French, English, Italian, German, Chinese, or any other desired language.
Faux language is most common in the context of comedy. For example, the Swedish Chef, Jim Henson’s Muppet character, chortles joyfully in faux Swedish. His chortling sounds like Swedish to Americans and to others who do not speak Swedish. However, a Swedish student told me that the Swedish chef’s speech does not sound like Swedish to her. She likes the character, though, and he makes her laugh.
Similarly, I heard a French comedian entertain an audience in Paris with a funny nonsense version of English. Although it was hilarious, his faux English did not sound like English to me. Obviously, it sounded like English to his French audience, however.
Faux language is usually a parody or satire of the known language it mimics. It pokes fun at a language or at the people who speak that language. Accordingly, the grammar and vocabulary of the language are immaterial. What is important is that the sound of the faux language is similar to that of a known language. Thus, comedians speaking faux language often toss in a few actual words of the known language to enhance the illusion.
Mock Languages
Farizi
Jamastapozortin potara nefexi armasparizironarok: Noharbitorogonoki abraza gefek ozokokomastangiti. Spodotifolonihonik oprana ufeki spozizomomaskargiti.
Nuffish
Undee glunk bemummy dee gog charch posit mezazzle um nunch toof meluster clatch. Dem hobbib bezazzie potis, mulk teeka toof, um dee roofus dee min tibbles. Bondo. Ne mim ribble mo rast. Tumbummy! Dee gon konka dack um ribble mepaddy, unka diff dee somplety flookerdash.
A mock language is meaningless, unintelligible verbiage that is invented to look or sound like an unknown language. I wrote the passage below in “Bongonese” to serve as example. Bongonese looks and sounds like a language, but really there is no such language.
Hobbanopu nopoummum humbummum wum bumspummum. Ogga moonbam ugga gomgom, num wumbum wommawooba wobbnuppu onggom obba nopopummum nuppa gomgom nuppatuppa wooma wumwamma oggagom.
Mock languages provide us with no means of interpreting them. That is, we have no method of determining whether or not these passages are grammatically correct. Nor are there dictionaries in which we could look up the words to find out what they mean or check the spelling. Hence, at first, these mock languages seem beyond the pale.
Upon reflecting, however, we realize that mock languages have some basic structural features of known languages. They are written in the letters of the Roman alphabet. They are apparently divided into sentences. They are punctuated with ordinary punctuation marks, and the letters are grouped into small units that look like words.
Each maintains its own distinctive characteristics throughout the whole passage. Furthermore, many more mock languages are possible, each one unique and distinctive.
Writers create mock languages for works of fiction, including novels and movies. Mock languages represent the supposed languages of fictional tribes, beings from outer space, or, sometimes, animals. Thus, mock languages are common in science fiction.
Hence, we need to distinguish mock languages from artificial languages. The Klingon language of Star Trek, for example, is an artificial language. It has a grammar and vocabulary, and speakers who know it can use it to communicate. Indeed, some Star Trek fans speak Klingon among themselves, and there are Klingon dictionaries in which they can look up words. Artificial languages are unlike mock languages, for mock languages are devoid of grammar, vocabulary, or meaning.
John Taylor, Edward Lear, and other nonsense poets created mock languages, although Lewis Carroll never did. To demonstrate the typical characteristics of mock language, here is a passage of mock language by John Taylor from “Epitaph in the Bermuda Tongue”:
Hough gruntough wough Thornough/Coratough, Odcough robunquogh.39
exercise
Jamatapozortin potara nefexi armasparizrok. No harbitoronoga abrazan gefeko opranoto zamagiti.
Undee glunk bemummy dee gog charch posit mezazzle meluster gatch. Ne mimribble mo rast.
1. Write an original example of mock language.
2. Introspect, then record your feelings and impressions about the mental process of writing mock language.
Nonsense Stories
Nonsense can be built around the framework of a story or narrative. That is, meaningless, unintelligible language can be put together in the form of stories, and the nonsense stories that result produce a curious, dreamlike sense of narrative action. British actor Samuel Foote wrote the following nonsense story in the 1750s:
So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf, to make an apple-pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street, pops its head into the shop. “What? No soap?” So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyulies, and the grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button on top; and they all fell to playing the game of catch as catch can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots.40
Foote wrote the story to challenge Charles Macklin, a retired actor who boasted that he could repeat anything from memory after hearing it just once. Foote’s story proved Macklin wrong. Nevertheless, the story is easy to memorize upon several re-readings. Hence, doctors once used Foote’s nonsense story to test their patients’ memory.
Playground rhymes often tell nonsense stories. Groups of children chant playground rhymes to create a beat for games, such as jumping rope or tossing a ball. Such rhymes are transmitted from child to child, with only minor alterations, for decades and decades, yet each succeeding generation of children believes that they themselves created those venerable verses. Playground rhymes integrate nonsense, meaningful words, narrating a story, and repetitive physical activity. Here is an example:
I went to the movies tomorrow
And took a front seat at the back.
I fell from the floor to the balcony
And broke a front bone in my back.
These nonsense stories consist mostly of self-contradictions that cancel themselves out. Reading the stories does create some sense of progressing from one action or event to the next, as in an intelligible story. Another famous playground rhyme incorporates the same pattern of a series of self-contradictions to tell a nonsense story, as we shall see later.
Another subtype of nonsense stories works by defying basic conventions of narrative structure. A closed loop of meaningless language can create an illusion of progression by going around in the same endless circle. A PhD student of cognitive psychology recited this example to me:
It was a cold night on the mountaintop, and the cowboys were huddled around a campfire. Suddenly, one of them spoke up and said, “Tell us a tale, Luke.” So, this is the tale that Luke told.
It was a cold night on the mountaintop, and the cowboys were huddled around a campfire. Suddenly, one of them spoke up and said, “Tell us a tale, Luke.” So, this is the tale that Luke told.
It was a cold night on the mountaintop and the cowboys huddled around a campfire. Suddenly, one of them spoke up and said, “Tell us a tale, Luke.” So, this is the tale that Luke told. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
How do nonsense narratives create these crazy effects? Throughout life, most people love stories, and we tell stories to children from their earliest years. So, in childhood, we soon internalize the basic abstract framework that underlies all stories. The basic narrative framework then vanishes into the background and operates automatically. Afterwards, we do not think about the basic structural constituents of narratives when we are absorbed in enjoyable stories. Therefore, when meaningless, unintelligible language is laid out over the framework of a story, it creates a sense of narrative action. Here again we see that the form of language takes precedence when there is no meaning.
exercise
One bright day in the middle of the night, two dead boys got up to fight.
Back to back they faced each other, drew their swords, and shot each other.
A deaf policeman heard the noise and came and killed the two dead boys.
1. Write an original nonsense story.
2. Introspect, then record your feelings and impressions about the mental process of writing a nonsense story.
The next type of nonsense is a subtype of nonsense stories. However, it has certain extraordinary characteristics and effects that deserve separate consideration. Therefore, it seems best to put the strange case of nonsense in motion into its own category.
Nonsense Travel Narratives
Nonsense language can be structured to create an illusory sense of motion in the mind. Abraham Lincoln used this device to make people laugh when things went wrong at a solemn state ceremony. His role in the ceremony called for him to ride away from the scene on horseback, leading a procession.
When Mr. Lincoln climbed into the saddle, the horse lifted up its hind leg and got its hoof caught in the stirrup. As the horse hopped around helplessly, the crowd was embarrassed into silence by seeing the President in such an undignified predicament. But Mr. Lincoln looked down at the horse and said, “Well, if you’re getting on, I’m getting off.”
The motion the joke contemplates cannot take place, except in words. A horse cannot get onto its own back by putting its hoof into a stirrup and climbing into the saddle, yet Mr. Lincoln’s words create in the mind a vivid, though confused and incoherent, image of that very motion.
Fiction and nonfiction travelogues are a perennially popular form of literature for old and young people alike. Children are exposed to travel narratives at a young age. Thereafter, children love to listen to travel stories and read them and see them in movies.
Concurrently, early in life, almost everyone develops the basic verbal skill of recounting journeys and telling stories of one’s travels. The narrative format itself soon becomes automatic, and the speaker just supplies the specifics of the story. In sum, the travel narrative format is ubiquitous and so familiar from such an early age that it recedes into the background. Normally we do not even think about it.
Its strong appeal and deeply ingrained familiarity make the format of a travel narrative an excellent vehicle for nonsense writing. Laying nonsense out as a travel narrative produces a strange mental sense of motion. In their minds, those reading or listening to a nonsense travel narrative experience a kind of motion that cannot take place, except in words. Nonsensical travel tales lead us on fascinating mental journeys.
In my courses and workshops, participants introspected as they listened to, or read, nonsense travel narratives. Throughout the exercise, they remained aware that the poems were unintelligible nonsense, yet they experienced a strong inner sense of motion. One can appreciate these effects simply by introspecting while reading nonsense travelogues. A nineteenth-century example called “An Unsuspected Fact” follows:
If down his throat a man should choose
In fun, to jump or slide,
He’d scrape his shoes against his teeth,
Nor dirt his own inside.41
Nonsense Worlds
Almost every child develops the basic verbal skill of describing a place. Place descriptions are ubiquitous in literature, in news stories, and in conversation. From constant exposure, almost everyone is familiar with the format, so its ingrained familiarity makes it an excellent vehicle for nonsense writing.
A layer of nonsense may be put down over the conventional framework of a place description. The process creates an illusionary place in the mind that cannot exist other than in words. Complex nonsense place descriptions evoke corresponding nonsense worlds in the mind. While nonsense worlds are nowhere to be seen except in the mind’s eye, they are of considerable social and historical significance. We will look at two literary examples of nonsense worlds. The first example is from Flatland, a novel by Edwin A. Abbott (1838–1929). Abbott was an Anglican clergyman and lecturer at Cambridge University. Flatland is a classic of nonsense writing that evokes a curious alternate world in order to satirize nineteenth-century British society. Within the space of a few paragraphs, the book draws us into a strange two-dimensional realm or state of existence. We quickly find that the strange world is inhabited by sentient geometric figures.
I call our world Flatland, not because we call it so, but to make its nature clearer to you, my happy readers, who are privileged to live in Space.
Imagine a vast sheet of paper on which straight Lines, Triangles, Squares, Pentagons, Hexagons, and other figures, instead of remaining fixed in their places, move freely about, on or in the surface, but without the power of rising above or sinking below it, very much like shadows—only hard and with luminous edges—and you will then have a pretty correct notion of my country and countrymen.42
Abbott explains that only straight lines are visible in Flatland. There is no source of light, and therefore no shadows are created that could provide a sense of perspective.
If our friend comes closer to us we see his line becomes larger; if he leaves us it becomes smaller: but still he looks like a straight line; be he a Triangle, Square, Pentagon, Hexagon, Circle, what you will—a straight Line he looks and nothing else.43
Abbott’s book uses categorical nonsense to evoke an alternate reality. For, plainly, imputing thought and a hierarchical society to triangles, squares, and circles mismatches things and attributes. Here we find nonsense superimposed on the format of a place description. The process creates a mental world that cannot be, except in words.
“Turvey Top,” a nineteenth-century nonsense poem by William Sawyer, creates an illusory world by using self-contradictions. Like Abbott’s book, the poem evokes a nonsense world in order to satirize the existing human world. It pokes fun at humanity’s foibles and misplaced values.
‘Twas after a supper of Norfolk brawn
That into a doze I chanced to drop,
And thence awoke in the gray of dawn,
In the wonder-land of Turvey Top.
A land so strange I never had seen,
And could not choose but look and laugh—
A land where the small the great includes,
And the whole is less than the half!
A land where the circles were not lines
Round central points, as schoolmen show,
And the parallels met whenever they chose,
And went playing at touch-and-go!
There—except that every round was square,
And save that all the squares were round—
No surface had limits anywhere,
So they never could beat the bounds.
In their gardens, fruit before blossom came.
And the trees diminished as they grew;
And you never went out to walk a mile,
It was the mile that walked to you.
The people there are not tall or short,
Heavy or light, or stout or thin,
And their lives begin where they should leave off,
Or leave off where they should begin.44
exercise
Introspect and Answer These Questions
1. Which type of nonsense did you like best? Which did you like least or dislike? Why?
2. What was your mental process of switching from one type of nonsense to writing another type? Describe your experience.
21. Nash, “Geddondillo,” 23.
22. Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 101–102.
23. Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, 136.
24. Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark, 22.
25. Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 183–184.
26. Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 183.
27. Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, 192–193.
28. Lewis, A Grief Observed, 69.
29. Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 97.
30. Ibid., preface (no page number is given).
31. Barrie, Peter Pan, 49.
32. Seuss, I Can Lick 30 Tigers Today, no page is given.
33. Disney, Pinocchio.
34. Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, 130, 132.
35. From Carroll and Gardner, Annotated Alice.
36. Swinburne, “Nephelidia,” 245.
37. Corbet, “Like to the Thundering Tone,” 27.
38. Lear, “The Cummerbund,” 25–26.
39. Reynolds, Radical Children’s Literature, 46.
40. Benham, A Book of Quotations, Proverbs and Household Words, 449.
41. Cannon, “An Unsuspected Fact,” 242.
42. Abbott, Flatland, 11.
43. Abbott, Flatland, 14.
44. Sawyer, “Turvey Top,” 474.