| May. 25th, 2006 @ 03:16 pm Word of the Week |
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I had finished this entry and was about to post it when I noticed the atack on my computer and shut down the network.
Ever got a song stuck in your head? Of course you have. We all have. The concept is saturated throughout our culture. Everyone has at least a few songs they can't hear without getting them jammed solid inside their consciousness for a good long while.
But.. ever get a word stuck in your head? As in, this word just pops into your mind unbidden while you're thinking about other things, every few hours for maybe a week or so? 'Coz it happens to me a lot. I'm wondering if it's an underexplored aspect of the common human condition, or maybe it's my hyperlexia, or just that I'm weird.
In any case, the word of the week is coprolalia. Lucky, lucky me.
What is coprolalia? Well, the word descends to us from Greek roots and means, literally, "shit babbling". It is the spontaneous, involuntary utterance of swear words. That probably sounds familiar to you — but you've heard it called "Tourettes". Our popular culture depicts Tourette syndrome as consisting entirely of one of its rarer manifestations, because it's the "funny" part. Just remember: Tourette syndrome is just involuntary movements and noises. If you're talking about compulsive cussing, the word is coprolalia. And that word has been stuck in my head for two or three days now.
Here are a couple more types of neurologically-originated meaningless babble:
- Glossolalia: known better as "speaking in tongues", this is talking without words. You take the sounds that make up the main language you speak, and just toss them together at random. Many religions have attempted to decipher these utterances to gain enlightenment. I believe the oracle at Delphi worked this way, for instance.
- Echolalia: Repeating things others have said. In the case of "immediate echolalia", for instance, this can mean that the person will repeat what the person they're talking to just sais instead of what they're trying to say. This is the first "lalia" word I came across. I found it in a Kurt Vonnegut book, and the word sounded so stupid I was almost sure he had made it up. Echolalia is generally associated with autism, but one doesn't necessarily mean the other. It's a possible effect of Tourette syndrome, for instance. As for the guy in the Vonnegut book, I have no idea what the hell he had.
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