...so one of the basic writing skills, of adding meaning at a subtextual/connotative level? (Poe in particular was adamant that you should set the tone of the story in the first first sentence.)
I'm puzzled by that story. Any halfway decent author can do that with a halfway receptive audience without all the prior-hypnosis baggage, just by utilizing the negative feelings people develop towards words over the course of their lives. Periodic spacing of negative-connotation words throughout an otherwise neutral-connotative work would make most people uneasy or uncomfortable.
I think the fnords are meant to have more effect than merely making most people uneasy or uncomfortable; they're supposed to function as a means of outright control. But I haven't actually read the Illuminatus! trilogy so I don't guarantee I'm right about that.
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