What Does Palinspeak Mean? - by John McWhorter

[Swede]

It’s not quite Bushspeak, which, with the likes of “I know what it’s like to put food on my family,” was replete with flagrantly misplaced words with a frequency that made for guesses, not completely in jest, that he might suffer from a mild form of Wernicke’s aphasia, interfering with matching word shapes to meanings. (Bush the father wasn’t much better in this regard—there just wasn’t an internet to make collecting the slips and spreading them around so easy.)

Rather, Palin is given to meandering phraseology of a kind suggesting someone more commenting on impressions as they enter and leave her head rather than constructing insights about them. Or at least, insights that go beyond the bare-bones essentials of human cognition — an entity (i.e. something) and a predicate (i.e. something about it).


http://www.tnr.com/blog/john-mcwhorter/what-does-palinspeak-mean

[JBoy]

1. A very interesting article.

I think these two statements sum it up best:

"Palinspeak is a flashlight panning over thoughts, rather than thoughts given light via considered expression."

"In any case, though, this is someone watching thoughts go by at a certain distance and gluing them together willy-nilly — for the first time."


She's saying things she's not only never said before, she's never even really thought about them before.

[Catshrink]

2. Does she write her own stuff?

I assumed she had a writer but no, I guess there could't be two people that stupid. Unless Tawd is writing her speeches.

[JBoy]

5. I think they're talking more about her "spoken" words, rather than written speeches

though her speeches are no prize either.

When Palin speaks off-the-cuff about any serious subject, it's clear that she's never given it much real thought before. Certainly never considered how she would explain it to someone else.

The contrast the article makes with Joe Biden on this is a good one. Biden, in spoken speech, lays out his points in a logical construction. It's constructed for the listener. To me that's the essence of intelligence. Goes hand-in-hand with something I hold to be true: The best way to learn something well is to try to explain it to someone else. Palin on the other hand, is giving us a real-time narration of what's going on in her head.

[Odin2005]

3. McWhorter is my favorite popular linguist. Great article.

IMO as spoken English continues to diverge from standard written English we will see the things he's talking about more and more from speeches from "important people", minus Palin's air-headedness.

This is probably why she is so popular, she talks like ordinary people talk (myself included) on a day-to-day basis.

[jgraz]

4. I love McWhorter, but here he uses a lot of words to say basically nothing

The fundamental defining quality of Palin's use of language is that she's a fucking moron pretending to be smarter than she is. Understand that and you understand why she speaks the way she does.

[Davis_X_Machina]

6. McWhorter is a Manhattan Institute fellow

...sharing their Center for the American University with Town Hall columnist John Leo, and was a columnist for the defunct, and very conservative, New York Sun.

All six or seven 'moderates' in the GOP are obviously trying to put up a firewall between Teh Stupid and the rest of the party.

[Jade Fox]

7. So, Palin speaks like a toddler.....

and people like it. There's something very creepy about that.

I wonder if anyone would respond well to a man who spoke like a toddler.

[RagAss]

8. ...they did for 8 years.

[graywarrior]

9. All she needs now is a pair of ankle sox and a lolly pop

[kywildcat]

10. word salad= palin speak

I think that phrase is used to describe the way psychopaths and narcissist communicate.

[TrogL]

11. It's more schizophrenics and people with brain damage

Psychopaths (and their cousin sociopaths) make perfect logical sense even if their premises are a bit off.

Narcicists also make perfect sense - "it's all about me".

Schizophrenics make connections between things that don't actually make any sense, hence their speech tends to change topic in mid-sentence.

People with brain damage (eg. aphasia) simply don't have the tools.

[Blue_In_AK]

12. Here's a recent sample, with helpful clarifications

from Gryphen at The Immoral Minority http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2010/04/sarah-palin-creates-brand-new-phrase.html:

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Sarah Palin creates a brand new phrase, "Gore-gate"! Nope doesn't mean a thing, thanks for asking.

Here is the transcript (with some helpful clarifications):

And finally we should create a competitive climate for investments and renewables, and alternatives that are economical and doable and none of this "snake oil" science stuff that is based on this Global Warming Gore-gate stuff (WTF? Gore-gate? I thought they referred to this as Climate-gate.) that came down...where there was revelation (Biblical code word for the Dominionists in the crowd! You know who you are! ) that these scientists..some of these scientists were playing some political games, and..I...I sued the Feds over this...I sued the Feds as Governor for some bogus listing on the ESA, just about got run out of town of course by the environmentalists, but now we feel a little bit vindicated because we're realizing through...Gore-gate that..um..there was some snake oil science involved in the data collection there (a complete misrepresentation of what the e-mails said ) ..the great energy innovation..that will replace the conventional energy resources is just not here yet..its not here yet, but it will be someday, and until that day we need out domestic resources to meet our needs (Which they currently don't because we use around 5 million barrels of oil per day yet burn up 19.5 million barrels per day ) and..that alternative..when it is discovered..it will be here.. and it will be Americans who find it, Americans will invent this next source (sound of imbeciles slapping their palms together ) because (more ignorant clapping) we invented the modern oil well, we invented the telephone, we invented...the airplane, and personal computer..we put a man on the moooon! We invented the Internet, unless that was just another Gore-gate thing too (laughter ) but it is American ingenuity that made this country the envy of the world..we have the ingenuity..and it will be Americans pioneering a new era in energy..we have the resource, we have the ingenuity we have the best workers in the world. now all we need is the POLITICAL will (smattering of claps )..so..in other words....there's nothin' STOPPING us from achieving energy independence that a good ole fashioned election can't fix! (Wild applause and crazy teabagger clapping )

Wow! That is not just word salad, that is word fruit salad!

Palin completely misrepresents the e-mails between the scientists working on climate change, rebrands it Gore-gate in order to get a cheap laugh out of a crowd that undoubtedly learned their science in Sunday school, and uses terms like "snake oil science" to feed into their ignorant mistrust of the educated. That is just fucking pathetic.

Sarah Palin has found the place that she feels the most comfortable which is speaking in rapid fire sound bites, and applause lines, while saying nothing of substance, to a crowd who really just came to gawk at her because she is the gaudiest clown in the circus. She has become an object of fascination, kind of like Eng and Chang Bunker or JoJo the Dogface Boy.

However while the Republicans might only be using her as a side show spectacle to help raise money, there are sadly some people who actually think the things she says are true. Those are the people that make Sarah Palin dangerous. They are not thinkers, they are believers. And like the tent revival preachers and televangelists who came before her Palin encourages these people to turn off their critical thinking and simply believe in her and the message that she brings.

By the way can somebody please explain to me how the words the President of the United States reads off of a teleprompter from a speech that all agree he usually has significant input in crafting is somehow less believable than the speech sitting on the lectern in front of Palin that clearly somebody else wrote for her and that she has to keep looking down to read? In the world of teabagging is seeing the top of a speakers head and hearing them constantly lose their place make them more authentic? I mean seriously, WTF?