In this, then, lies their power of understanding--understanding, without words, what is authentic or inauthentic. Thus, it was the grimaces, the histrionics, the false gestures and, above all, the false tones and cadences of the voice, which rang false for those wordless but immensely sensitive patients. It was to these (for them) most glaring, even grotesque, incongruities and improprieties that my aphasic patients responded, undeceived and undeceivable by words. This is why they laughed at the President's speech.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales