A coworker of mine years ago once said of James Earl Jones’s voice, “When he says ‘This…is CNN,’ you think to yourself, ‘Oh my GOD, it is, why did I never think about that??!?”
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Paul Cantrellreplied to dimsumthinking last edited by
@dimsumthinking
It is indeed. -
@neonsnake @inthehands Many moons ago Dick Cavett interviewed the great Jonathan Miller over five nights, who revealed that he was a life-long stutter/stammerer. His strategy was to foresee the word coming up in his sentence that was going to make him pause, and quickly find a synonym that wouldn’t. What a mind.
Anyone who thinks people who stutter are stupid, are stupid.
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@mrpommer @neonsnake
This is called “circumlocution,” and many, many people who stutter do it (including Joe Biden). -
"His strategy was to foresee the word coming up in his sentence that was going to make him pause, and quickly find a synonym that wouldn’t."
That's it, exactly that - I didn't know there was a word for it - "circumlocution", but I'd seen it elsewhere as a tactic. The "half a second pause" is me re-routing the sentence around the word I'm not going to be able to say (largely subconscious at this part in my life).
Funnily enough, one of the times I can come unstuck is when doing presentations, public speeches etc - if I can *literally* see the word coming up (eg. on a card or teleprompter) I'm completely screwed, as it's much harder to re-route - like, it's almost stuck in my brain. I learned to use cue cards of the barest nature pretty quickly; which has the positive knock-on effect of making my presentations seem much more natural and engaging anyway.
I have vague memories of Biden getting stick about using a teleprompter and stumbling (I'm not from the US, so haven't watched many of his speeches etc), which I've an idea was more "stutter" related than anything else.
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Paul Cantrellreplied to NeonSnake last edited by [email protected]
@neonsnake @mrpommer
That’s fascinating that visually seeing the word helps! I’ve heard that lots of different surprising things like that help different people — like for example some people stutter less hearing their own speech played back to them with a slight delay, which makes it •harder• for most people to speak! Brains sure are fascinating. -
"That’s fascinating that visually seeing the word helps"
Other way round - seeing the word is a problem!
If I can sense a word coming up...uh, crap example, but lets use: "So, I had to climb this mountain", something in my head goes "Nope, no chance of you saying that out loud", then I'll flip to "So, there was me, ascending to the summit, yeah?"
But if "I have to climb this mountain" is physically present in front of (cue cards, teleprompters etc), I'm knackered - I can't think of another phrase, because it's now imprinted, or something?
(I used to get into trouble for this at work, a little. I regularly did on-stage presentations to the whole business, a few hundred people say, and a couple of times the "events co-ordinator" wanted me to practice first, and have a very literal script, and wasn't prepared to accept me saying "uh, that's not gonna work, I'll just have to change the words on the day anyway, otherwise I'll stand up here stuttering")
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@neonsnake @mrpommer
Oh, sorry, that’s what I get for reading too hastily! Either way I’d believe it. Speech is so complicated and surprising, it seems like almost anything could happen. -
No worries!
It 100% works differently for people - I know at least one person who almost *needs* that script when presenting (etc), otherwise their stutter overcomes them.
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@neonsnake @inthehands @mrpommer I highly recommend reading Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. This book was absolutely amazing to me as a someone with a stutter. I read it in amazement as it described so many situations that I knew intimately.
It was so perfectly described that I was then not wholly surprised to learn that the novel is semi autobiographical and that David Mitchell also has a stutter.
But it really meant a lot to me to see it written about so gracefully.
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@ebauche @neonsnake @mrpommer
I’ll be sure to mention it to my SLP spouse, who I’m sure would be interested!