tangentialist

(n) person; someone who engages in tangental speech, a communication disorder in which the train of thought of the speaker wanders and shows a lack of focus, never returning to the initial topic of the conversation. Symptoms include unnecessary detail and storytelling that only slightly relates to the original topic or never reaches a conclusion.

The tangentialist Playful_Barber_8131 heard the word "peanut" in conversation, then proceeded to describe how the word origin is derived from the fact that peanuts are legumes and thus related to peas, hence "pea" + "nut" to get the word "peanut," and then went on to describe another fun fact about how American cheese doesn't have enough cheese in it to qualify as real cheese, so it's actually called a "processed cheese food," and that even though they like American cheese they like cheddar cheese a lot more, especially sharp English cheddar, as Cheddar is the epynmous place after which the cheese is named, and it's so interesting how a lot of foods are named after places and the food becomes more famous than the place, like champagne, and so on and so forth, never again returning to the original topic of conversation, which was "do you have any allergies?"

by InstantD March 21, 2025

Tangentry

The artful practice of diverting a conversation onto related or seemingly unrelated tangents, often to entertain, illuminate, or reframe a subject while maintaining an underlying thread of connection. Utilised in assessment of professional oratory, e.g. after dinner speeches, typically in professional or society circles

tangentier (n.) - A conversationalist skilled in the art of tangentry, deftly weaving digressions into discourse with purpose or flair.

“There’s a lot of tangentry tonight”

“Sir Joseph is a well known tangentier”

“The audience was captivated by his tangentry”

by Sulphre August 8, 2025

wild tangent

a meaningless, useless, retargerous detour from one's immediate goal or purpose

considering all the possible negative accompanying unattended cannonballs, please refrain from going on a wild tangent when you have a specific goal in mind that you want to achieve

by Uncle Dimma February 21, 2015