Sh...

You'll disturb the spider.

Or the pointless spider photo, maybe.




Ok, seriously, the title has nothing to do with the photo. You do, however, have to be careful when attempting to photograph jumping spiders with an autofocus camera. The spiders have decent eyesight, you see, and they try to follow your movements. Makes it hard to get enough time for the camera to actually focus.

And yes, I do realise that none of you really care about any of this.

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Now, about speech impediments. That's what the title's really about, you know. Speech impediments, or more specifically my speech impediment. I have one... or did have, when I was younger. It still shows up when I'm tired or distracted, but it's not a regular part of my life anymore.

It never was an especially important part of my life anyway, but I'm kind of lacking in blog fodder at the moment so this is what we're stuck with.

When I was a kid I had trouble with sh. Not so much when it was the initial sound, but if it came in the middle or at the end of a word I was hopeless. Fish to me was fiss. And if a word had both an s-sound and an sh-sound in it, I pretty much gave up. Or at least didn't bother giving it one of each sound.

The reason this comes up, incidentally, is that the internet radio just played a Josh Rouse song and it occurred to me that I'd probably trip over that name a little bit even now.

Does it bother me?

No, not really. I'm not entirely sure why I even brought it up, to be honest.

Do you suppose it affected who I am at all, though? Where I'm going with this (and since I only just now decided where I'm going with this I may not get too far) is that I realise that people with serious speech impediments can, and often do, suffer other effects like severe shyness or equally severe frustration. Which can lead to other things... I don't know, maybe you should google it for yourself instead of listening to me blathering on about something that I don't know too much about.

Anyway.

Can a minor thing like an sh problem have other effects, then? Did it change me in ways that I might not be aware of? When I say it never really bothered me, I'm speaking (or typing) the truth. I don't remember being teased about it or having any kind of speech therapy (although I might have. Not remembering doesn't prove that it didn't happen). I do remember my parents gently encouraging me to say things like dish instead of diss, but I honestly don't recall it ever being made a big deal.

Maybe they were told I'd grow out of it.

After all, I did. Mostly. All that's left are the remnants, and it's not exactly the end of the world to me if I accidentally turn an sh word into more of a tongue twister than it needs to be every once in a while.

It's no different than having to think heel, toe when I walk.

Erm... I do that too. Long story, and no doubt you'll hear that one another time when I'm whinging about my ankle. Notice the when as opposed to if. It'll happen. It always does.

But does any of this stuff that I consider minor childhood annoyances have an effect on who I turned out to be, do you think?

Obviously I don't know, or I wouldn't be asking the question.




And on that unresolved chord, I think I'll stop blathering now. You can add a cadence yourself if you're so inclined. That's why there's a comment link, after all.