Georges Hugnet: Au pied de la Lettre/Word for word
Series/Book Title: The Guaranteed Surrealist Postcard Series
(1937)

"He does not want to be accurately understood."

The same menu every meal with this guy. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks - the same things always come to the table. Standing up, sitting down, or on the run, it remains identical. Furthermore, it tastes terrible. The mouth feel remains the same. It's always too salty and never quite sweet enough, though it's obvious sometimes he's tried to sugar-coat it, often with saccharine substitute. Still, it never manages to taste very different. It's somewhere south of gourmet while still north of greasy spoon. It always comes too soon and stays too long. It's not just him, though he's clearly the instigator. Nobody else could create such culinary abominations. Even when slathered with that inevitably gloppy dressing and gaudy flags flying to distract, it remains the same incomprehensible flavor to even the most sophisticated palate. He deals exclusively in WordSalad.

Nobody, not even the incredibly well-paid shill commentators, ever really understands what he's saying. Those who religiously parse his every utterance will not go to Heaven for their diligence. They, too, take chances when translating, and everything he pronounces requires translation. In its original form, it tends to be too formless to comprehend. It literally has no meaning, and couldn't. The lights of recognition that some exhibit tend to be acts of projection; they are hearing what they expected or hoped they'd receive rather than whatever was actually transmitted. He might as well be communicating in drunken Morse Code. Still, his audiences receive the reverence due to somebody actually fulfilling the duties of his office, though he never has. He pretends to pronounce, and his audience pretends to understand in response. It's never not an utterly absurdist dance.

The commentators blather on through every evening, interpreting and repeating the most popular translations until everyone feels adequately reassured that we don't have a complete loon on our hands. Not everyone's convinced that it's involuntary. Some believe it's a clever plot to keep his adversaries off balance. If this were true, there might be some shred of evidence that this was working. There never was, and never will be, but it could be part of some compensating strategic plot to keep everyone further off balance, in the understanding that our incumbent speaks only in WordSalad. Not one of his pronouncements parses. He speaks in fundamentally undiagramable sentences, abominations to the English language, the bane of every fifth-grade grammar teacher who ever existed. He tap dances his way through sentences, his only artifice might be that he manages to convince himself that he's actually saying something. He gives speeches that only make sense in the satisfied expressions they leave on his face. Everyone else leaves more clueless than they were before he began speaking.

This administration appears to be utterly dominated by senior interpreters, who seem to fabricate whatever they want to believe their leader intended. When confronted later by some member of the press on the homebound flight on Air Force One, the incumbent will deny knowing anything about the question, which further obscures the meaning of whatever questionable thing he was saying. Later, the press secretary, a known liar or a "chief policy advisor," titled as if this administration, which seems uninterested in administering anything, occasionally deals in actual policy, provides some properly formed "clarification," which inevitably tends to only further muddy the already opaque water. There is never a story underneath. When some shred of truth finally emerges, it will disclose that the action described was almost precisely the opposite of the one actually undertaken. Even if the pronouncement had been conventionally parsable, it would have most certainly been a lie, anyway, and so only properly understood as the opposite of its apparent intent. Word Salad.

No dessert is ever served after this entrée. It's the Dieter's Delight every blessed meal, every damned day. Those who tend to gain weight on a steady diet of truth need not concern themselves under this regime, for this is much less an administration than a regime. The difference between a regime and an administration might be that administrations are always up to something while regimes continually suppress. The truth and nothing but remains their constant enemy from the outset, and that conflict never abates. A steady diet of truth alternatives replaces more normal nourishment. The more gravy or dressing that hides whatever might be underlying—under there lying—, the better for them and their nefarious operations. If it appears that the incumbent is suffering from advancing Alzheimer's, so much the better. When the deliberate seems organic, the press and the public tend to behave in much more forgiving manners. If our incumbent could declaim Shakespeare when not on stage, his performances would never be tolerated. Better that he appear to be insane than seem to be competent at performing anything. That little dance further distracts. He does not want to be accurately understood.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

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