User:DorianGray/Analysis of Homsar's Speech Patterns
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Homsar's speech patterns are quite unusual, and many believe that his strange way of speaking is the result of a mental disorder such as word salad, a condition in which sentence structure and grammar are intact, but individual words are picked at random and have no particular meaning. This article pulls together all of the things Homsar has said since his introduction in the Homestar Runner universe, identifies the context of each line, and determines whether or not the line qualifies as a word salad.
Homsar's Speech in Chronological Order (oldest first)
| Quote | Toon | Context | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| "DaAaAa, what ees it, Strong Bayaad!" | Email homsar (2001) | Responding to Strong Bad, who had just gotten his attention. | This is a simple greeting |
| "DaAAahhh, hello, Marzypa-yun. It's Homsar! Dahhh, I was just calling to thank you for the flowers you sent me while I was in the hospital. Daahh, I'm feeling much better now, but I still can't feel my leeegs. Okay, bye-dee-bye." | Marzipan's Answering Machine Version 5.0 (Dec. 2001/Jan. 2002) | Homsar has presumably recovered from having the Heavy Lourde dropped on him. | Homsar speaks in basically perfect (if exaggerated) English in this message. |
| The House That Gave Sucky Treats (Oct. 27, 2001) | Homsar's intro, and then his lines after being handed Shavin' Creem, Black and Orange, and Taffy Wrench, respectively. | His intro references his costume. His responses to the treats are strange, but are not completely random. |
| Where's The Cheat? (Feb. 25, 2002) | Homsar is playing Connect Four with Strong Sad, then speaks to Bubs when he enters the room. | Homsar's line does reference two games (although not Connect Four, which Strong Sad remarks on), and he almost gets Bubs' name right. |
| "AaAaAaAaAaAaA!!! I'm saving the best for last!" | Email your friends (Oct. 14, 2002) | During the montage, Strong Bad buries Homsar and covers him with scorpions. | Perfectly legitimate phrase with no real discernable connection to the situation. |
| Homestar Runner: What do you have to say for yourself, little man? Homsar: {unusually dejected voice} I'm the ghost of Christmas past. Homestar Runner: Wow. You set a new standard for last place. You don't get a ding. Homsar: And also with you. | Pumpkin Carve-nival (Oct. 29, 2002) | Homestar and The Cheat walk up to Homsar, whose "pumpkin" is an eggplant with a spoon taped to it. | Homsar's first response references A Christmas Carol, while his second line is a common response in many religious prayers. Both have some connection to the scene, and neither one is a word salad. |
| No line | | N/A | N/A |
| "Nowowowow, this is the thrill of a lifetime." | Happy T! (Nov. 28, 2002) | This Easter egg was found by clicking on the bottom-right corner of the page. | The other characters all said some variation of "Happy T!", but Homsar's line could still be construed to make some sense. |
| "I do what I'm told..." | Email dragon (Jan. 13, 2003) | Strong Bad had just told him to get out of his house. | Seems pretty coherent given the situation. |
| Email interview (Feb. 10, 2003) | These are Homsar's actual lines in this email. The other "lines" were spoken by Strong Bad. | Homsar's first line makes enough sense that Strong Bad, as well as the viewer, can figure out that he's referring to Strong Sad. The second line is a comedic repetition of one of Strong Bad's lines. |
| Toons: "ToOoOoOons!" Games: "James!" Characters: "Kelsey Grammer!" Downloads: "Thank youuuuu." Store: "Legitimate business." Email: "AaAaAaAaAaAaA!" | Homsar Main Page (Feb. 10, 2003) | Homsar reads off the main navigation buttons in his own unique way. | None of these really qualify as word salads, though he does seem to go further and further out of context with each button. |
| "AAAaaaAAAaaa-I'm just in time for the murder mystery!" | Email suntan (Jun. 16, 2003) | A "Celebrity(?) Testimonial" of Strong Bad's Ab-Abber 2000. Homsar had used it to draw a calculator with the word "SALAd" on his shirt. | Homsar's line makes absolutely no sense in this scene, but the sentence itself is coherent. |
| "I'm crying on the inside..." | Email impression (Aug. 25, 2003) | Homsar had just been disqualified from the Strong Sad Lookalike Contest because he looked exactly like Strong Sad. | This line makes perfect sense for two reasons: It sounds like something Strong Sad would say, and Homsar himself may have been sad he was disqualified. |
| "AaAaAa! I'm open for interpretation!" | 3 Times Halloween Funjob (Oct. 29, 2003) | Homsar's secret costume, Slash from Guns N' Roses. | Could easily be reinterpreted as "What do you think of my costume?" |
| "AaAaAaAaAaAaA! Hi, Wonder Mike! I'm Homsar! The captain of the gravy train. Climb aboard! I've brought my best foot flowered... Pshoooo! Sure beats breaking up with me. Don't look now! I'm just a friendly reminder. AaAaAaAaAaAaA! AaAaAaAaAaAaA! Think I won the Powerball." | Homsar's Character Video (release date unknown) | Homsar introduces himself. | "I've brought my best foot flowered", if taken at face value, is a prime example of a word salad - the sentence makes no sense either in context or by itself, and yet is still syntactically valid. However, Homsar might have meant to say "forward" instead of "flowered", which would make the sentence make much more sense. The rest of Homsar's video is made up of coherent but disconnected sentences that each make sense by themselves. If there were such a thing as a "sentence salad", this would certainly be it. |
| "You gotta get yours, I gotta get mine." | Email army (Jan. 5, 2004) | Responding to Homestar's call to action for the Homestarmy. | This line makes some sense in this context - it could be construed that Homsar really is in the Homestarmy for personal reasons. |
| No line | | N/A | N/A |
| "I'm forever your girl." | Email different town (Feb. 23, 2004) | Spoken as Modestly Hot Homsar. It should be noted that this took place in Strong Bad's imagination. | This phrase makes perfect sense, considering that Homsar was just transformed into a female figure. |
| "It's time for tasteball!" | Email theme park (May 25, 2004) | Responding to Coach Z and Homestar, who were discussing their mascot costumes. | This line had no connection whatsoever with the other two characters and their costumes, and by itself it doesn't really make much sense at all. This is a somewhat loose example of a word salad. |
| No line | | N/A | N/A |
| Email for kids (Aug. 9, 2004) | Homsar on his kid's show, Whaddaya Know, Haddi-Man? | "I'm a trendy tote bag" makes about the same amount of sense as "I'm a song from the sixties" (see above), and his line about real estate (referring to the letter G) makes a small amount of sense in context. His last line is strongly connected to the scene, in which they had just finished singing "Stave It Off, 1-2-3". |
| "I blew it, man. I lose my touch." | Halloween Fairstival (Oct. 29, 2004) | This was a line spoken by Kumar Bottle Rocket, which was Homsar's costume. | This seems to make sense since he's quoting the character is costume is based on. |
| Homestar Presents: Presents (Dec. 20, 2004) | Homsar is running a donation station, and Homestar stops by, spits in the donation can, then leaves again. | Homsar's first line is a take on "Alms for the poor", a common greeting for beggars, panhandlers and donation takers. The second line is an odd way of saying "thanks". Both make sense. |
| "I'm the human wedgie." | Email origins (Jan. 31, 2005) | Homsar was tied up with Marzipan as a prank. | This line seems to indicate that Homsar is aware of his predicament, but it doesn't really relate all that well. However, "The Human (noun)" is a pretty common way to describe one's self performing the function of an inanimate object - for example, "The Human Cannonball". The Human Wedgie would be an "interesting" task. |
| No line | | N/A | N/A |
| "Caramel corn for president, please." | Email rampage (Apr. 11, 2005) | Homsar gives "praise" to Strong Sad at his Poetry Slam. | As praise, this sentence makes very little sense. On its own, it also doesn't make much sense, though it is fairly close to "Kernel/Colonel Corn", which is a common joke. It may be a stretch to call this a word salad. |
| No line | | N/A | N/A |
| "I'm just me, can't you see? I'm just a silly little bumblebee." | Email record book (Jul. 25, 2005) | Coach Z sang the same thing moments before. Both were aiming for a record of some sort. | Homsar is simply copying Coach Z in this scene. |
| No line | | N/A | N/A |
| "Location, location, location!" | Halloween Potion-ma-jig (Nov. 1, 2005) | Homsar dresses up as Tingle from the Legend of Zelda series. He says this after Homestar rejects his "choices". | Homsar's quote here is a common phrase used in real estate (the three most important things). It makes no sense in this context, but it does not seem to meet the criteria of a word salad. |
| "Let's sing a song of Pennzoil!" | Fall Float Parade (Nov. 21, 2005) | Homsar and a clone of himself drive through the parade. | Could be construed as a product endorsement. Pennzoil has sponsored many such parades in the real world. |
| No line | | N/A | N/A |
| "I'm a little light in the leftovers!" | Weclome Back (Jul. 3, 2006) | Homsar says this while standing on a merchandise table. | Homsar takes a common phrase and substitutes a random word - something he does fairly often. This sentence could be construed to mean "I don't have much leftover stuff", or "I'm not very smart". |
Analysis and Summary
As we can see here, there are logical arguments for almost all of Homsar's phrases. Most are somehow connected to the scene he's in, though not all of them, and only two sentences can be firmly identified as word salads (and even then, there are ways to make them make sense). It seems that Homsar simply has an odd and somewhat indirect way of communicating with others.
There is a pattern that appears during this analysis, however: In almost every case, if there's a strong reason for Homsar to communicate a particular concept, he'll do it unerringly - one can always tell what he means. It is when he doesn't have a particularly strong reason to communicate that his speech becomes more random. For example, if he has a request ("Is that rhinoceros around?", "That's a real popular song! Who wants to hear of it fifty times more?"), his sentence relates quite clearly to the scene, and is itself perfectly valid, even if there was a much more direct way of saying it. But in his character video, his sentences are almost completely disconnected from one another, and in suntan and theme park, he had no particular reason to send a message, so he seemed to just pull a random sentence out of thin air, perhaps just so he could say something.
It seems clear that while Homsar doesn't have a strong grasp on reality, he is pretty coherent most of the time, and he can relate to other characters and his surroundings when he needs to. Looking at the definition of "word salad" as given by Wikipedia, it does not appear that Homsar suffers from this disorder - at least, not much.
