I was tired of this cliché quip whenever anyone speaks science in a film.
They told him to speak English.
Lexically, he was. The words he used were all English words, and most would be found in the Oxford English Dictionary. He could have used them in a game of Scrabble. Some would have scored pretty highly.
Syntactically, however, he was not. That was the problem. In the middle of his explanation, Dalton had been hit with a sudden phonic tic, and had blurted out several long, scientific buzzwords in a random order. The soldiers he had been presenting to had laughed it off, as military men are wont to do, but his condition had been a serious one. Dalton's health deteriorated rapidly after the incident, with the tics becoming more and more frequent. Soon, he couldn't speak English at all.
The most shocking part of Dalton's case, for me, was the lack of support he received. In no other profession could one man crumble so quickly, and so obviously, without any attempt by his colleagues to help. The mad scientist stereotype is a dangerous one. If a soldier acts insane, others are frightened and he will receive immediate medical attention. If a doctor acts insane, others are amused, and leave him be. "Speak English", they said, and they left: shaking their heads. Scientists, in the eyes of the media, can't get mentally ill. We merely go eccentric.
It is now almost two decades since Dalton's famous outburst, and his employers have noticed the problem. One man going crazy is a joke. It provides a humorous anecdote to be recounted down the years, especially to his successors. When they start to follow his lead, however, it ceases to amuse. It begins to puzzle, to worry, and to scare.
That's where I come in. An expert in neuropsychiatry, specialising in tic disorders, I was recruited by the military to scratch this one particular itch. It was a good thing they did. Without me, they'd been lost, looking in all the wrong places. With me, they just about stood a chance.
From the onset, I could see that there was a physical cause. This hadn't been about the particular stresses of the job, the mental demands of building weapons that work, and the moral demand of building weapons that kill. This hadn't been about what the scientists put into their work, but may well have been about what their work put into them. I demanded details, and eventually had my security clearance raised. What I saw confirmed my suspicions, and my worst fears. These weapons were chemical.
I almost quit, there and then. It's bad enough concocting devices to do who-knows-what to enemy soldiers, but allowing them to destroy your own scientists? I had to remind myself that these were military men. They probably didn't know any better. Dalton should have: he, and the other scientists, had designed these weapons. They should have realised what they were capable of, and been more careful.
I knew that I had to be very careful indeed. These were soldiers, not doctors or ethical philosophers. You are a good scientist if you ask questions, but a good soldier if you don't. Challenging them over this, or quitting, would help no-one. Leaving wouldn't bring Dalton's mind back, but finishing this job could at least prevent anybody else from suffering his fate.
Besides, I might even be able to bring him justice. The military wouldn't hear my complaints, but the wider world would be just as shocked as I was. I needed to find out everything about these weapons, prevent the disease from occurring again, and then leave without suspicion. Once free, I could reveal my findings to the world. They'd made me sign a gagging order, but I'd find my way around that. They'd take Dalton's voice away. I wouldn't let them take mine.
First, I had to finish my investigation. After my demands for confidential information, I had to deliver the goods, without arousing considerable suspicion. They were expecting big things. Fortunately, I thought I had my answer.
"What we have here, gentleman, is something I've never seen before. I'm naming it Sophilalia, or 'Dalton's disease'." I pause. So far, so good. "Sophilalia is characterised, in the most part, by a series of uncontrollable vocal tics. The disease targets-"
"Sorry, could you simplify that for us?"
"Well, it's similar to Tourette's. The patient unwillingly blurts out irrelevant words. In this case, the part of the brain storing specialist knowledge is targeted, and so Sophilaliacs, those suffering from the disease, tend to use the most complex words in their vocabulary."
Of course, this wasn't exactly true. Tourette's syndrome is inherited, whereas this new condition was very clearly caused by chemicals. The two were completely unrelated. If I was presenting to fellow scientists, I would have described the correct terms. But I had to speak English.
"Very good, doctor. Can you explain why this disease happens?"
"From what I can ascertain, this syndrome's etiology pertains to the very armaments its convalescents manufacture."
"Come again?"
"The munitions incorporate... " No, that wasn't what I was trying to say. "Apologies for my grandiloquence, I'll reattempt. The weapons, they... contain certain.. chemicals which..."
"Doctor?"
I knew exactly what was happening. I'd spent the last few months studying it... and studying those chemicals. I should have known better.
"They... affect the... minds of." It was no use, I just couldn't control it. This was more serious than I had thought. Even my thought processes were becoming impaired, as rampant sesquipedalia vitiated my - "Depolarizability!"
"You might have to dumb that down for us lesser minds," they joked.
"Electroencephalography temporal equilibrium!" I was shouting for help, but all they did was laugh. I was panicking now, fully aware of my transubstantiation into a hippomonstrosesquippedaliophobiac. I subsequently vociferated. "Polymerisation!"
"Dr. Miller, I'll ask you one last time."
"Heterogeneous malignancy! Floccinaucinihilipilification!"
"Doctor!" The soldiers chuckled amongst themselves. "Please, speak English."
