Monday, February 14, 2011
Wow. That's aphasia.
A CBS reporterette in Los Angeles suddenly slips into complete jumble on air, without losing her smile and without realizing what has happened. Either a stroke, or some kind of toxic or drug reaction, turned off part of her brain's speech center.
You often hear a tired brain that can't find a - a - a - word, or litches a few sweaters, but I've never heard such a complete and sharp switch from normal speech into Wernicke word salad.
Video.
According to news, she was not hospitalized but "checked out by EMTs and sent home with a friend." Not smart. Even though she didn't turn red and fall down like a cartoon stroke, something serious happened inside her head.
[A week later: CBS, probably tired of hearing from people who questioned this decision, got Serene to describe her condition. She has a rare type of migraine headache which sometimes causes temporary spasms in cranial arteries. Thus the symptoms are fully identical to a stroke but the cause -- unlike a clot or aneurysm -- goes away in a few seconds. Presumably the TV station already knew about the condition, which explains their non-emergency attitude.]
= = = = =
Later linguistic note: Interesting that her neologisms, though formed by a defect, all have a Latinate feel. Burtation, darison, tairette, taison, hebitet. Thus following the pattern of English vocabulary, which makes new words from Latin roots more than anything else. Our primitive grammatical elements, the pronouns and articles and a few old verbs and nouns, are Teutonic; some older nouns are Norman French; but nearly everything since 1400 comes directly from Latin and Latinized Greek. ¶ 7:27 AM
You often hear a tired brain that can't find a - a - a - word, or litches a few sweaters, but I've never heard such a complete and sharp switch from normal speech into Wernicke word salad.
Video.
According to news, she was not hospitalized but "checked out by EMTs and sent home with a friend." Not smart. Even though she didn't turn red and fall down like a cartoon stroke, something serious happened inside her head.
[A week later: CBS, probably tired of hearing from people who questioned this decision, got Serene to describe her condition. She has a rare type of migraine headache which sometimes causes temporary spasms in cranial arteries. Thus the symptoms are fully identical to a stroke but the cause -- unlike a clot or aneurysm -- goes away in a few seconds. Presumably the TV station already knew about the condition, which explains their non-emergency attitude.]
= = = = =
Later linguistic note: Interesting that her neologisms, though formed by a defect, all have a Latinate feel. Burtation, darison, tairette, taison, hebitet. Thus following the pattern of English vocabulary, which makes new words from Latin roots more than anything else. Our primitive grammatical elements, the pronouns and articles and a few old verbs and nouns, are Teutonic; some older nouns are Norman French; but nearly everything since 1400 comes directly from Latin and Latinized Greek. ¶ 7:27 AM
