On stuttering

[chops]

Two excellent articles from Wikipedia about Taglish and its opposite, Englog for anyone curious

[XCashier]

If I remember right, it already hadn't been a great day, and the more tired I get the harder it is for me to speak clearly. So when I took that guy's order, I could barely get a sentence out without having to pause to force the words out of my mouth. The customer decided to deal with this in the pleasant manner of "can't you stop that shit? it's really annoying."

"I could ask the same thing about your breathing. Sir."

Reminds me of this story. It's disgusting that people treat their fellow human beings that way. Yes, some human beings are less than perfect, didn't your alien leaders teach you that before they dropped you off on our planet?!

[karath]

I've found most people with a stutter hate it when people "finish" their sentences for them, or just answer without waiting for the finish. Just wondering if that's true for you too?

Oh, more than you can imagine. A little urgency is understandable, but no one's psychic, and trying to finish my sentences for me just means that I'll spend LONGER trying to correct the incorrect assumptions made.

I'm with Broom on the question about whether or not it annoys you when someone tries to finish your sentences for you.

Hope that answers your question too Chanlin!

[Ttam]

I have a minor stutter too, but it's for a different reason than Patiokitty was describing. I'm a very shy, nervous person, and I tend to second-guess myself. Especially when I get flustered, I'll start to stutter because I'll stop myself in the middle of a word to make sure that's really the one I intended to use. I also have a tendency to forget certain words, dropping off in the middle of a sentense because I can't remember what word I'd had in my head just a moment ago, or because I can't think of what word perfectly fits into the blank.

In the case of forgetting the word, it does come in a little handy sometimes for people to try to prompt me a little because I can let them know if they got it right or it might help me remember. However, when I'm getting stuttery/forgetful, it's really annoying when someone starts to just go "Well?" or "What?" or something. That, of course, just gets me more flustered and makes it harder for me to get out what I'm trying to say.... It's especially bad since, because I'm so timid, getting interrupted mid-sentense totally derails my train of thought and I usually just give up and go back to saying nothing at all.

[PaRaGaS]

Two excellent articles from Wikipedia about Taglish and its opposite, Englog for anyone curious

Let's not forget about Singlish!

[Banthor the Unruly]

I too have been stuttering most of my life, I have gotten petter through therapy, but like everyone else I still have bad days. and I think it has cost me jobs and lost me promotions. I find it interesting that stuttering is enough of a disability that people feel ok to pick on you about it, but not enough of one that they feel guilty about it.

I am especially bad on the phone. I have no idea how you stutters handle a call center job without having a break down. but then I block, (my vocal cords lo ck up and I have to start over, or force me way through, both noticeably awkward). This has made for some very interesting SC comments "What did you forget your own name?" I like to go deadpan and my situation plainly, it usually shuts them up. "No sir, I have a speech disfluency which is usually exacerbated by the phone"

[Misanthropical]

Banthor the Unruly, last year I had something happen that causes me to stutter when I'm tired or angry.

I work in a call center, which I prefer over dealing with people face to face. I just have to slow down when I speak. It's hard, but I manage to slow down.

The thing last year also left it that when I'm tired or angry I will forget certain words, such as if I want to say "hand me that book" I will forget what a book is called. That is harder to overcome in a call center, but I have an understanding friend that sits next to me who will remind me of the word I'm looking for.

I was only made fun of once, by a guy I was calling about his past due bill. He told me if I couldn't speak clearly I shouldn't work on the phone. I told him that I may have a problem speaking sometimes, but at least I pay my bills on time. He hung up on me.

[ShootMePlease]

People who make fun of someone else's impediments should have their asses kicked. The bottom line is that some people don't have the patience or just don't understand. That certainly does not excuse their rudeness.

[smileyeagle1021]

I don't have a stutter, but I do have a speach impediment that makes it very difficult for me to say certain sound groupings, mostly either the letter "r" or the letter "l" following by a vowel (there are a few others, but those are the 2 that cause me the most problems). Most people can tell that I am really trying to get their name correct but it won't work and are understanding and don't get too pushy on it, but I've had some people just snap and tell me that I must be retarded if I can't pronounce their simple names. Those are the people that I simply tell them that it is do to a speach impediment, and they are now considered an abusive caller and we are refusing service.
The other variation of that is people who will say that I sound like I'm in central (remember, as far as the guest should be concerned I am in-house for the hotel they are calling, as it is that I have the same authority as someone in-house)... those people I'll tell that if they are saying that because of how I talk, that would be because of a speach impediment and they can go to hell and if it's because of the dialog I'm using I'm more than happy to make myself sound like the people at other hotels they've called and make chimp noises (ok, you know I've never done the second part, but I've wanted to).

[Liminality]

Seeing this post made me sign up to the forums after being a long-time lurker, so hi everyone!

Ever since I was a kid I've had trouble with stumbling over my sentences when I get eager, upset or very angry, but as I got older it got better - now my main problem is speaking my native language which is Danish because I spend most of my day speaking English on the computer and I often forget what a word is in Danish and say it in English in the middle of a sentence.
My first job ever was at a call center, doing surveys for Gallup, and I was quite nervous, but as time progressed it became easier. I'd sometimes stumble over the words, especially if I had had a bad day and my success rate sucked. Amazingly, I've never gotten any bad comments about it, probably because I can feel when it's gonna happen and I know to take a deep breath. I also have a tendency to speak very fast (it happens easily when I'm on a survey I've been on so many times I know every single part of it by heart.) and I have been asked to slow down.
The only time my studdering has been commented on was by a guy who was studdering himself. He was a teacher and a fast speaker, so I thought I could go through the survey quickly and that he wouldn't need anything repeated. I stumbled over my own words a lot, but he didn't comment on it until the end when he said "RELAX when you're off work and SPEAK SLOWLY". But it was more in a helpful kinda way than in a "you're a bloody moron" kinda way, 'cause he finished the survey after all.

[digilight]

I've had a stuttering problem all my life. I've learned to deal with it over the years and can keep it hidden alot better know then I used to.

Basically for me its like my brain is coming up with the shit faster then my mouth can get it out. Imagine a LA style traffice jam happening there. I just have to relax a bit and actually think about what I am trying to say. Usually that helps.

Now if someone had made fun of me they would have gotten their ass handed to them. Either verbally or physically, I don't handle shit like that well myself.

Either that you you just tell them.... Well then Fu..Fu..Fu..Fuck off Dick Hea Hea Head....

[Sarah81]

My youngest brother (who's 20 now, incidentally) had a speech impediment for most of his childhood. I actually broke one girl's nose because she wouldn't shut up and quit making fun of him. He'd been raised to not hit girls, which is fine and good and all that. But I'm a girl, so I had no problem encouraging her to shut her stupid mouth and quit being a cruel, useless waste of oxygen. (This was, incidentally, one of only two fistfights that I've been in my entire life.)

People who mock speech impediments deserve to have their jaws broken and wired shut so that they can't communicate normally. Let them see how it feels to be unable to make themselves clear to others.

P.S. I'm not normally a violent person. I swear I'm not. But some things make me furious. Mocking something that a person can't help is definitely in my top five. Speech impediment, a scar, whatever.

[TryNotToBeThatOne]

Mel Tillis, an American country singer & actor (& painter according to his webpage), has a pretty bad stutter but when he sings, his cords unlock. If you ever see him in Cannonball Run, you can see an example of this after he & his partner drive their car into a swimming pool. Mel starts to say something until his stutter pretty much locks him up & then he pauses & kind of sings the rest of the line.

My brain works faster than my mouth so the words all try to exit at the same time. The only thing that keeps me from being completely incoherent is that my dad is partially deaf & I've heard 'slow down, enunciate. I can't understand you,' my entire life.

I have had to literally bite my lip to keep from jumping in on a stutterer. I did that because 1) I'm often an impatient git & 2) it would be rude to you know, actually jump in. The last stutterer who came to ask me a question, that partially worked. He got past the first blockage but when the second one kept tripping him up, I had to make a suggestion as to the word he was looking for.

[Banthor the Unruly]

Sorry to (kinda) go off topic, but this is the first time I have been in a large gathering of stutterers and I have been wondering about this for a number of years.

I have heard that if a stutterer has a child, as that child is learning to speak the stuttering parent can actually "teach" their child to stutter unintentionally. Since a child first listens to others speak, it would make sense that they wouldn't know the disfluency was wrong.

I do not have children yet, but I can fight off my wife for only so long. I also know that stuttering is genetic, I have a cousin who stutters as well.

Has anyone else heard anything about this? Any tips or suggestions?

[draco664]

Any tips or suggestions?

Don't encourage your child to walk before/soon after crawling. Seriously.

My mother thought it was the bee's knees that I was walking before I crawled. Apparently I was 'so advanced for my age' that she nearly drove away her friends with her boasting.

Anyway, my stutter as a child was pretty bad, and the speech therapist I went to see found it interesting that I hadn't gone through a crawling stage as a baby. So she told me to practice crawling up and down the stairs at home.

Less than a month later, no stutter. (Well, unless I try to say one thing, then change my mind halfway through the sentence. Then I get caught up and need a reboot...)

Apparently, the movements of crawling (one arm forward, the same leg backwards) is in a similar part of the brain to the speech centre.

So, the theory is that the longer the crawling phase (including commando crawling) the better developed the baby's speech will be.

Draco.