Help Us Diagram This Sentence by Donald Trump!

[demmiblue]

Source: Slate

At the Slate Political Gabfest's live D.C. show this week, Emily, David, and John tried to diagram a sentence uttered in Sun City, South Carolina on July 21 by the ever-eloquent Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. They were defeated.

<snip>

Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, okay, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart—you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, okay, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it’s true!—but when you're a conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged—but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right—who would have thought?), but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners—now it used to be three, now it’s four—but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2015/07/31/donald_trump_this_run_on_sentence_from_a_speech_in_sun_city_south_carolina.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_top

Wow, that is Sarah Palin level word salad. Maybe even worse! Bring on the debates!

[msanthrope]

1. No.....my brain would break. nt

[oberliner]

2. I got nothing

That was mystifying.

[lostnfound]

3. More interested in DSM-III classification. Narcissist, paranoid, schizophrenic, delusional?

He seriously rings alarm bells for mental disorders. No offense to people with mental disorders, I am not making fun of these conditions. But I think he needs treatment.

[Igel]

4. You've never transcribed real speech before, have you?

You're confusing competence and performance. They're different things and have different rules.

Once transcribed a kind of presentation my boss gave. He was incensed and wanted to know why I'd written down all kinds of ums, ohs, and ungrammatical sentences or part sentences. I didn't know the rules of transcription or the levels of transcription.

And that was him speaking from prepared notes.

Try transcribing Obama's unprepared comments some time. It'll be an eye-opener. Self-interruptions and other dysfluencies are common. (In fact, it turns out they are also sometimes part of the grammar: They often serve very clear purposes for both speaker and audience, right down to the ums and ohs. But if your view of "grammar" is prescriptive school grammar, then I guess there's just no room for that in your philosophy, Horatio.)

[Smarmie Doofus]

5. If only one could locate the predicate ....... n/t

[shraby]

6. I couldn't even locate the subject.

[Smarmie Doofus]

7. I think it's "You- understood".

In other words.... it's set up as an imperative sentence.

The predicate should be something consistent w. THAT.

[Smarmie Doofus]

9. Maybe that's wrong. It's been a while:

"You-understood" is the subject.

"Look" MAY be the predicate.

In other words: "You listen!".... an "imperative sentence."

But once ya get past that you have a thicket of fragments, dependent clauses, parentheticals ( w/o parentheses, natch) and basically no applicable punctuation.... even allowing for the verbal presentation.

Point is: does anyone really know what he's saying?

[3catwoman3]

10. The subject is easy.

It's Donald. He is always the subject of anything he says.

[rock]

8. As I've said before

Spoken English can't be diagrammed. You can also throw out your grammar book if spoken English is what you're learning. This isn't just Trump's language! Of course, in more formal situations, speakers try to speak a little more formal (like in those grammar books).

[Rex]

11. What is the premise?

Nuclear power? Iran? Women? His uncle? The hodge podge complex-compound-confounding run on sentence might be the worst fractured line of thought I've ever seen.

How does he keep a coherent thought in his head if he communicates like this?

Handlers fail.

[Liberal_in_LA]

14. genetic based intelligence seems to be the point of his statement

[Rex]

18. True, he also uses a guttural form of language shared among certain people.

Not so much based on word recognition, as much as grunts and tone. Rush has swooned many with such language. Palin got her own TV channel.

[elias49]

12. This is not a word salad. It's a word bouillabaisse

And stinks of fish.

[Jamaal510]

13. ...

[IMG][/IMG]

[Motown_Johnny]

15. I heard he hired a former Palin adviser.

This may be the product of his advice.

[Contrary1]

16. Can't diagram it, but here is an explanation, of sorts:

"Word salad is a “confused or unintelligible mixture of seemingly random words and phrases”, most often used to describe a symptom of a mental disorder. The words may or may not be grammatically correct, but the meaning is confused to the point that the listener cannot extract any meaning from it. from wikipedia

taking a moment to pay tribute to those among us who seem to have a problem answering a simple question …
or who just blather on and on about nothing really, all the while trying desperately to sound intelligent and serious … generally, while attacking their ‘enemies’ with talking points handed to them by some other idiot who seems to not have a secure handle on things like reality or facts … or common sense … or integrity …
the nonsense and drivel that pours forth from the blathering and bloviating pie-holes of these morons is often priceless and would be hilarious if not for the fact that these baggerese and truthiness speakers are usually in some sort of power position in our society …

still, they do deserve to be honored for their attempts at the language …
or, called out for it … (i guess it all depends on how you view it)

<snip>

it’s a veritable olympic games of far right talking points and fact free nonsense covered in a deep layer of bullshit and propaganda inspired, vile and bile soaked spewage and fear mongering …

https://hipiseverything.wordpress.com/tag/sarah-palin/

[davekriss]

17. That man is a raving megalomaniac

Truly text book personality disordered. And to think he currently is in the driver's seat of the clown car! Tells us all we need go know about a sizeable portion of Republican voters.

Just crazy mean, all of them!

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

19. Trump couldn't talk to his plumber about unclogging his toilet without interrupting himself

and mentioning his brilliance, his riches, and the fact he went to Wharton.