The tourettes thread had me thinking- is there a disease, condition or syndrome that includes the symptom of not being able to stop talking? I know someone who quite literally cannot be quiet. Even with complete strangers they have to say something. It’s not just random words, but complete (I would not say adult!) sentences, and they go on and on an on. At first I thought it was just quirky, but now I am starting to think their is really something wrong with this guy.
Is there a way to edit one’s own posts? I am starting to become embarassed that I cannot cover up my fingers-faster-than-the-brain grammatical errors.
I don’t know if it’s a named disorder, but I know a guy like that. With Earl, it’s as if he has a natural, built-in motion-detector light switch in his body. He’ll be sitting alone, and the instant somebody comes within twenty feet of him, his head pops up and his mouth starts going. It’s usually just pointless chatter, often telling the other person “Joanne said to tell you ‘hi’!” (Joanne is his girlfriend.) One time, a guy walked in whom Earl hadn’t seen in more than a year. The first words out of Earl’s mouth were “Joanne said to tell you ‘hi’!” (yeah, right, of course she did) and then he continued on with his usual senseless chatter.
I’ve worked with a couple waitresses like that as well, who start chattering with their customers, to the point where the customers would sometimes start getting annoyed because she wouldn’t leave them to eat in peace. One waitress actually wore a button that said, “Tip me and I’ll shut up” that somebody gave her. She had another button that said, “I’m talking, and I can’t shut up!” (I gave her that one 
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I’ve encountered two people like this.
The first was a girl I met when I was volunteering for AIDS Walk Atlanta. She came in to lick envelopes with another person. As soon as she sat down, she started to talk. Her incessant flow of words did not stop the whole time I was there. I know it was pathological because it was very obvious no one was listening to her. Her friend (maybe it was a relative) wasn’t in the room with us, and people were coming and going. Also, she was asking questions–real ones, not rhetorical ones–and did not seem fazed when no one answered her. I wasn’t exactly listening either, but I had heard enough of her stream of consciousness to know she wasn’t exactly normal. It wasn’t nonsesical or disorganized, but the neverendingness of it all made me feel very uncomfortable.
The second guy is someone who works for my advisor’s husband. Ted is a nice guy but he will talk your head off. He’ll be working quietly and then you’ll ask him a question, like, “What does this thing do, Ted?” and it’s like turning on a talk-bot. He won’t stop talking to you even as you put on your coat and head to the door. He won’t hear you say, “Well, I gotta go!” He’ll just keep talking to you.
We recently found out that Ted has Asberger’s. He can’t pick up on body language. I don’t know what was wrong with AIDS Walk Girl, though.
I work with someone like this also. She talks non-stop about herself, her kids, her extended family, her divorce, her bankruptcy, on and on, spewing the most outrageous claptrap sometimes. I think half of it is made up. She has rich relatives who ignore the rest of the family; she has cousins who have been cheated out of their birthright, a nephew earning multiple degrees while in prison for murder, yammer yammer yammer. Even when I make it perfectly clear that I am working, she won’t shut up. I only encounter her when she comes in my area to use the copier and I can’t imagine how her office mate bears it (It might help that he has a hearing problem, or so he says). Ignoring her doesn’t help and acknowledging her makes it worse. She is a perpetual victim and totally self-absorbed. Makes me crazy!
Have you tried telling him “Let’s talk about something else” or “I’d rather not talk right now, I’m going to be leaving soon”? I have Asperger’s, and I’m unaware that when I’m talking too much about something, so it’s better to have someone actually say something like that(although I don’t try to talk if someone’s said “Bye!” or “I’m leaving”).
Frequently referred to as “Mothormouth” an obsessive/compulsive affective disorder.
No known cure, and closely allied with/to “Continuous Keyboarding” disorder where the patient answers every post on every bbs they can access!
I had a motor mouth for a boss. She had a thyroid problem which we all had to hear about over and over again. It was endless high speed drivel, and if you tried to speak yourself she usually either interrupted before you could finish or simply ignored what you said. I quit, as do most people who work for her. 
logorrhea (log·or·rhea) (log²o-re¢[schwa]) [logo- + -rrhea] excessive volubility, with rapid, pressured speech; as seen in manic episodes of bipolar disorder and in some types of schizophrenia. Called also agitolalia, agitophasia, pressured speech, tachylalia, tachyphasia, and verbomania.
logomania (logo·ma·nia) (log²o-ma¢ne-[schwa]) [logo- + -mania] logorrhea.
My oldest son is like that, only it’s not nonsense, just endless opinions of nearly everything. And he’s always right, of course. When he was young, we used to tell him that he needed to rest his lips or they would grow huge and he would drool a lot. On a long trip, he drove everyone absolutely around the bend. He’s gotten better now at age 30+, but still tends to run onandonandonandon.
What was the name of that 12-step group for people who talk too much? Oh yes: Alanonanonanon.
On a related subject, there is a term for people who do make up something just so they can keep talking. It’s not uncommon among people drifting into Alzheimer’s, as well as compulsive talkers, or, sometimes, people who feel the social need to talk (as in, there’s a blank that needs to be filled in, so here comes some filler).
I can’t recall the term, does anyone know it?
“Liar”?
This is called Korsakoff’s syndrome. It is often from a lack of vitamin B1 leading to a degradation of the mammary bodies of the brain, although there are other causes like dementias. It often manifests itself in confabulation, or making stuff up out of thin air to fill gaps in the memory.
http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/Facts_about_dementia/What_is_dementia/info_korsakoffs.htm
As for pathological logorrhea, it can be what is called a fluent aphasia. There are two areas of the brain (generally) responsible for formulating speech – Wernicke’s area in the dominant temporal lobe and Broca’s area in the inferior frontal gyrus operculum area. To think about ti simplistically, words are produced in Wernicke’s area and then sent to Broca’s area, which assembles them into communication patterns.
Damage to either of these areas (and the tract of white matter connecting them) leads to different kinds of aphasia. The more familiar one is a Broca’s (or non-fluent or motor or expressive) aphasia – a person cannot formulate the words and so “chokes” on words. Perhaps a person will only be able to say one or a few words, and uses them to convey all communication. Interestingly, patients are often able to draw but are unable to write the words. A person can understand language but not produce it. A Wernicke’s (or fluent or sensory or receptive) aphasia conversely produces a patient who has no problem retrieving words but cannot assemble them into coherent communication. A person with a fluent aphasia usually cannot understand language but can produce long, grammatically correct, utterly incoherent sentences. It is sometimes refered to as “word salad.”
In med school, they also taught us that if there are issues in the white matter tract connecting the two areas, one can get a third kind of aphasia called a transition aphasia. This is a kooky one – the person can understand and produce language, but the language produced has no relation to the language understood. Repetition of sentences is severely affected, though comprehension is not. The example was along the lines of a patient asked to repeat the phrase “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” and he responded “Don’t be overly critical of gifts you receive.”
Hmmm… I had an episode of logorrhea when my doc increased my dose of Adderall, which is a stimulant medication. I definitely felt “manic”–agitated, jumpy, intense. And I absolutely positively could not stop talking! I was stuck in a car with friends. Fortunately, they were close friends and were understanding. Believe me, I told them all about why I was talking so much. Over and over. In great detail. With profuse apologies. It was horrible.
Fortunately, it was just a one-time thing. But I feel sorry for anyone who has to deal with this on a regular basis, either being the one doing the one talking, or having to be around the compulsive talker.
cant stop talking drivel syndrome? electionyearpoliticitis!
No, we can’t edit our posts here. It’s been much discussed, but the upshot is that the possibility of people saying something inflammatory, getting a reaction, and then editing to say “I didn’t say that!” would be A Bad Thing.
We just learn to accept typos. Everybody makes them and it’s no big deal. And remember, “Preview is your friend.”