Word salad (computer science)
Encyclopedia
Word salad is a mixture of random words that, while arranged in phrases that appear to give them meaning, actually carry no significance. The words may or may not be grammatically correct, but the meaning is hopelessly confused. A famous example is Noam Chomsky
's phrase, "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously
." The term is used to describe poetry and other literary works (as in Chomsky's example), but is also often used to describe a symptom of mental disorders or textual randomization in computer programs.
and schizophrenia
, as well as after anoxic brain injury.
It may be present as:
). Mojibake
, also called Buchstabensalat ("letter salad") in German, is an effect similar to word salad, in which an assortment of random text is generated through character encoding
incompatibility. This artefact has been the subject of amusement as well, when people tried to "translate" the generated characters into intelligible words and sentences.
Nonsensical phrasing can also be generated for more malicious reasons, such as the Bayesian poisoning
used to counter Bayesian spam filters
by randomizing text in a syntax that seems to make nominal sense. Bayesian poisoning may also use intelligible sentences, such as text taken from an old novel, which have no connection to the main subject of the spam.
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
's phrase, "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously
"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is a sentence composed by Noam Chomsky in his 1957 Syntactic Structures as an example of a sentence that is grammatically correct but semantically nonsensical. The term was originally used in his 1955 thesis "Logical Structures of Linguistic Theory"...
." The term is used to describe poetry and other literary works (as in Chomsky's example), but is also often used to describe a symptom of mental disorders or textual randomization in computer programs.
In mental health diagnoses
Word salad may describe a symptom of mental conditions in which a person attempts to communicate an idea, but random words come out instead. Often, the person is unaware that he or she did not make sense. It appears in people with dementiaDementia
Dementia is a serious loss of cognitive ability in a previously unimpaired person, beyond what might be expected from normal aging...
and schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
, as well as after anoxic brain injury.
It may be present as:
- Wernicke's aphasia
- Schizophasia, a mental condition characterized by incoherent babbling (compulsive or intentional, but nonsensical)
- Logorrhea, a mental condition characterized by excessive talking (incoherent and compulsive)
- ClangingClangingIn psychology and psychiatry, clanging or clang association refers to a mode of speech and logical association to two or more words primarily based upon word sounds when no logical association between the words exists. For example, rhyming or alliteration may lead to the appearance of logical...
, a speech pattern that follows rhyming and other sound associations rather than meaning.
In computing
Word salad can be generated by a computer program for entertainment purposes (for example, a game similar to Mad LibsMad Libs
Mad Libs is a phrasal template word game where one player prompts another for a list of words to substitute for blanks in a story, usually with funny results...
). Mojibake
Mojibake
, from the Japanese 文字 "character" + 化け "change", is the occurrence of incorrect, unreadable characters shown when computer software fails to render text correctly according to its associated character encoding.-Causes:...
, also called Buchstabensalat ("letter salad") in German, is an effect similar to word salad, in which an assortment of random text is generated through character encoding
Character encoding
A character encoding system consists of a code that pairs each character from a given repertoire with something else, such as a sequence of natural numbers, octets or electrical pulses, in order to facilitate the transmission of data through telecommunication networks or storage of text in...
incompatibility. This artefact has been the subject of amusement as well, when people tried to "translate" the generated characters into intelligible words and sentences.
Nonsensical phrasing can also be generated for more malicious reasons, such as the Bayesian poisoning
Bayesian poisoning
Bayesian poisoning is a technique used by e-mail spammers to attempt to degrade the effectiveness of spam filters that rely on Bayesian spam filtering. Bayesian filtering relies on Bayesian probability to determine whether an incoming mail is spam or is not spam...
used to counter Bayesian spam filters
Bayesian spam filtering
Bayesian spam filtering is a statistical technique of e-mail filtering. It makes use of a naive Bayes classifier to identify spam e-mail.Bayesian classifiers work by correlating the use of tokens , with spam and non spam e-mails and then using Bayesian inference to calculate a probability that an...
by randomizing text in a syntax that seems to make nominal sense. Bayesian poisoning may also use intelligible sentences, such as text taken from an old novel, which have no connection to the main subject of the spam.