You're listening to Luke's English podcast.
For more information visit teacherluke.co.uk.
Hello listeners, welcome back to Luke's English podcast.
This is a podcast for learners of English around the world.
My aim with these episodes is to help you get more listening practice into your life and to ultimately help you build your English in the process.
This episode is going to be a sort of story episode but it's a little bit different to the usual stories I do.
I'll be doing one of those kind of text adventure stories or what's also called interactive fiction which means I'll be going through a story which I found online.
It's one of those interactive stories which means that you get to make choices at various points in the story which probably affect the way the story progresses.
Now in the past I've done these text adventure stories and previously they've been mostly kind of like detective stories.
Also there was a horror story as well.
And also there was that story where we had to imagine that we were a lemon trying to escape from a kitchen without being chopped up and turned into a juice or something like that.
Do you remember that one, the lemon adventure story?
Now this one I'm going to do today is a little bit different because in this one we have to basically put ourselves in the shoes of a normal person trying to go through a normal day in their life.
Just an ordinary day someone attempting to pass through the day and do the sorts of things that we often will do in our day like booking to make a reservation, arranging meetings, you know, just all sorts of normal things.
But the challenge here for this person is that this person has disfluenced speech or this person suffers from a stammer or a stutter, a speech impediment.
And we're going to see how dealing with a speech impediment in your everyday life can be incredibly frustrating and annoying.
Okay, so a speech impediment, stammer or stutter.
So these are two words for the same thing, a stammer and a stutter or two stammer and two stutter.
Right, stammer is the British English word, stutter is the American English word.
They both mean exactly the same thing.
The symptoms of a stammer or a stutter, the symptoms of stammering include things like repeating certain syllables of words when you say them.
So for example, if the word, if the problematic word, for example, is the word podcast, it would be saying pod, cast like that, you see.
Or prolonging certain sounds of words.
So in this episode of my pod, in this episode of my pod, cast, or long stops or blocks as you're speaking a sentence.
So that would be long stops or blocks when you're trying to record your podcast.
Right. And also other symptoms would be simply getting very frustrated as you try to speak in sentences.
It also might involve tension in the face when trying to speak or even the lips moving, shaking or kind of trembling.
And generally having difficulty speaking in social or public settings.
Okay, now some people experience this.
It's apparently it's more common in childhood, but it's not unusual for some symptoms to continue into adulthood.
I mean, I think that most people stammer and stutter a little bit when they're speaking.
And this is exacerbated by stress, like when you're speaking in public.
But having a genuine speech impediment is a totally different thing.
And it can be very, very frustrating and debilitating, I think.
The famous depiction of this, one of the famous depictions of this.
And there aren't that many depictions or accurate fair depictions of speech impediments in the media, in movies and things like that.
There aren't that many representations of it, but one famous example is the film The King's Speech, which was an Oscar-winning film from a few years ago when was it maybe 2012 or something like that.
Do you know that film Colin Firth in that film is the actor.
He plays King George VI, who was Queen Elizabeth's father, right, so the King before Queen Elizabeth.
Now we've got King Charles before that Queen Elizabeth II, before that it was King George VI.
And King George VI actually had a stammer.
And he had it from childhood and it continued into adulthood.
And this was a major problem for him.
And in the film we see King George VI attempting to deal with the stammer while preparing to make various very important speeches to the nation during World War II.
So, and you see Colin Firth acting as King George trying to overcome his stammer.
Why do people have stammers?
I mean, I think it's not completely clear, but I think that experts now understand that stammers are caused by connections in the brain, neural connections, not being connected normally.
Does that make sense? So, you know, your brain is a series of sort of electrical connections, nerve connections.
Those connections are responsible for making your body do things.
And certain, I guess there are certain connections responsible for making speech happen for controlling your mouth, the vocal tract, you know, the parts of your body that are responsible for making words come out for speech.
It's actually must be a very sophisticated and complicated process, right, that we're able to make these very subtle sounds and link all these sounds together and so on.
But for some people, those neural connections are not wired in the normal way.
And as a result, the connection from the brain to the mouth, for example, is blocked.
And so, they struggle to make those sounds.
And as a result, you get things like, yeah, like the things I explained before.
But it's a neural issue rather than a psychological or behavioral issue.
Some people have said that they think that stammering or speech impediments are a result of childhood trauma.
But it seems that this is not the case.
In fact, it's simply a neurological issue, a physical issue, you know, brain connection issue.
And that that is probably likely to cause suffering or psychological issues.
So, if you know, kids who grow up with a stammer are going to probably develop some issues related to that.
But it's the stammer that causes the issues.
It's not the psychological issues that cause the stammer.
You know, and that's an old fashioned view that personality of the child that the child is nervous or shy.
And that's what causes the stammer.
But it's likely to be the other way around that having the stammer makes a child or an adult shy, nervous and socially uncomfortable.
And I'm curious with this episode to kind of explore what it would be like to live with a stammer.
Okay. So let's go. Let's start this game.
Okay, I'm going to open this up now on my computer and see.
So I'm now looking at the page on the interactive fiction database, which has loads of these interactive stories on it.
And so, yeah, Alison Gray is the writer.
You can check out her profile on iftb.org.
About the story, there's one line it says sometimes talking is easier said than done, which is quite nice.
I mean, here's a bit of vocab.
And what I want to do with this obviously is take you through the story, but I also want to try to use the story to teach you bits of vocabulary as we go, you know, vocab in context.
So easier said than done.
It's easier said than done.
This is a nice phrase, which just means that, well, it's fairly clear what it means, I suppose.
But it's a bit like, so you say this when someone says, oh, just do this.
And then you can say, oh, well, that's easier said than done, meaning it's easy to say it.
But it's actually much more difficult to really do it.
For example, oh, yeah, just, you know, just get like eight in your IELTS.
And then you'll be able to apply to this university.
So you just need to get IELTS eight, IELTS 7.5 or eight.
And then you can apply. So just get IELTS, you know, just go away.
It's spend three months and just get you English up to level eight and get the get an IELTS score of eight.
And then you can make your application.
Oh, just get what? Just get an IELTS eight.
Well, that's as easier said than done.
Right. Meaning it's actually much more difficult than than that.
So it's so easy to say it.
But it's more difficult to say to do it.
And so that's quite quite appropriate that talking is easier said than done, which is quite a nice little joke.
Let's get started. So disfluent.
Here we go. We're about to start the game.
Now we've got some options at the beginning of the game.
And by the way, you can play this too.
And I recommend that you do it as well.
But after listening to this episode that you go and follow the link in the description and play the game as well, it'll be a good way to sort of reinforce a lot of the language that you've heard me using.
You'll be able to read it yourself.
And maybe you'll make different options.
You choose different options as you go.
You might make different choices and you might get a slightly different story.
We've got a few options here.
We've got credits, extras and stuff like that.
Let's just quickly look at the about section.
So it says here disfluent is a short narrative centered around communication, which uses colors to indicate the difficulty of delivering different dialogue options.
So the story is written in the text is written in different colors.
And I think the different colors represent what looks like three different levels of difficulty in speaking green, yellow and red.
So I suppose green is is like not too difficult.
Yellow is more difficult and red would be very difficult.
So it continues. Your goal is simply to get through the day, accomplishing your objectives as best you can and hopefully finding a bit of happiness along the way.
Progress is saved automatically in your browser's cookies.
So don't be afraid to live.
Don't be afraid to live.
That's just good advice, isn't it generally?
Don't be afraid to live your life.
Don't hide away. But no, it says don't be afraid to leave mid playthrough.
So yeah, the you can just go off and close the window when you come back.
You'll be in the same place.
It saves your progress.
Okay, there are options.
There's a color colorblind friendly mode full screen mode.
You can reset all progress as well.
Reset the cookies credits.
I should read these out written and developed by Alison Gray.
These awesome people graciously volunteered their time as playtesters and provided very insightful feedback.
Mia, the best daughter ever, Parker, Pigeon, whoever that is, I suppose that's a nickname rather than an actual pigeon, which would be impressive.
If a pigeon was able to actually play this game and give feedback on it, that would be that would be good.
Like what did you think of the game, Pigeon?
Cool. Or you liked it then.
Abdullah Said Craig, Kogan and Fay.
So those are all people who helped Alison to make the game.
Special thanks to the talented folks who developed twine and Harlow, as well as those who contribute their knowledge to help other users on I.
F forums. Extra special thanks to my partner Alex for his invaluable moral and technical support for any issues, questions, comments and other chatter you can contact the author to Alison Gray.
Alison, Alison underscore gray at hotmail.com messages are always greatly appreciated.
All right, extras, she said come back after finishing the game.
All right, so let's get started then.
Tick, talk, tick, talk, tick.
So this is time passing like a clock ticking tick, talk.
He looks at you expectantly as the office clock ticks on your keenly aware of every second that passes each one adds another layer to your embarrassment.
Why? Why can't you answer?
So clearly we're in an office situation.
Someone has asked us a question and we can't reply.
And it says, well, it was nice meeting you.
I'm looking forward to working with you.
I'm Eric, by the way, what's your name?
For some reason, we can't say the name.
Come on, just say it. It should be so easy.
Just tell him your name.
So, hi, my name's Eric. What's your name?
And we're going. We're struggling to even say our own name.
So what's our name? Well, I'm going to write my name.
Luke. Okay. Luke, you want to say you open your mouth, but you already know it's in vain.
So if you do something in vain, it means that there's no point.
It's not going to work. You open your mouth.
You already know it's in vain.
Nothing comes out. Your throat feels tight and your tongue won't obey you.
Eric chuckles nervously.
Did you forget your name?
You hear laughter to the other people.
Everyone is looking at you now.
You imagine people laughing nervously.
The clock is ticking louder than ever.
Taunting you. So it's taunting you.
It's kind of like, what happened?
Oh, it was a dream. It was a dream.
You open your eyes. The sun is streaming into your room.
Blindingly bright. The radio is blaring out a song.
You don't recognize blaring out, meaning the sound is coming out very loudly.
The radio is blaring out a song.
You don't recognize. It's morning.
You lie awake for a moment.
Still reeling from your nightmare.
You're reeling kind of like reacting, struggling to come to terms with what happened.
Like you've been knocked off balance.
What was that about? You're still reeling from your nightmare.
You can only hope it won't be prophetic, meaning that it's not going to be a prophecy for the future that it's not going to somehow come true.
You groggily glance at your to-do list for the day.
If you feel groggy, it's like you're feeling the morning like, oh, God, I'm just trying to wake up.
You feel groggy, like you're kind of sleepy.
Your brain is not very clear.
You don't feel very fresh or alert.
And grogally is the adverb.
You grogally glance at your to-do list.
You kind of like, eh, quickly look at your to-do list, the things you have to do.
You're going to be busy running around and speaking to quite a few people.
So, talking with people, and we have a few options here, talking with people really energises you.
Talking with people is very nice in moderation.
And talking with people has never been your strong suit.
Okay, so what's the best option for me?
Talking with people really energises you is very nice in moderation.
It's never been your strong suit.
Well, I wouldn't say that talking with people has never been my strong suit because obviously, you know, as a teacher, as a comedian, as a podcaster, talking with people is a thing I do a lot.
If something is not your strong suit, it means it's not your strength.
It's not the thing you're good at.
Your suit, in this case, would be, when playing cards, there are four suits, right, in a game of cards.
There's the hearts, the diamonds, the clubs, and the spades, right?
And in certain games of cards, you will have a strong suit, a suit which is more powerful.
For example, hearts in this game are the powerful cards, and that's the strong suit.
You see what I mean? So, it's an idiom.
Your strong suit just means your strength.
Right? That's not true.
Speaking, I'm not too bad at speaking to people, but does it really energise me?
Like when I talked about this in that MBTI personality test episode from earlier this year, I was talking about being an extrovert and an introvert.
Talking with people is great, but it doesn't always really energise me.
In fact, sometimes I find it exhausts me a little bit.
So, I'm sort of in the middle.
I'm not a complete extrovert.
I'm not a total introvert.
I've got a bit of both. So, I would say talking is very nice.
Talking with people is very nice in moderation.
If I have to do too much of it, I start to get tired.
For some reason, on the podcast, it's a little easier.
Maybe because there's no actual person here.
I'm just talking to a computer, basically.
So, I can just keep going and it doesn't seem to be so exhausting.
Anyway, talking with people is very nice in moderation.
I'm going to choose that.
So, you really enjoy a good conversation with people you click with.
So, if you click with someone, it's like someone that you get on with someone who you feel comfortable with, where your personality seem to match each other quite well.
So, you really enjoy a good conversation with people you click with.
But having a good conversation can be difficult at times because of your stutter.
So, this game is written in American English.
I'm guessing that Alison is in the US.
Maybe Canada, I'm not sure.
But anyway, she's using the word stutter.
In Canada, they say stammer or stutter.
I'm not sure. Let's say this is the US.
And they're saying stutter.
So, a conversation can be difficult because of your stutter.
You don't understand the exact cause of your disorder.
To your knowledge, science hasn't quite figured it out yet.
Science hasn't worked it out yet.
But it's most likely something in your brain not working as it should.
It's been gnawing away at your speech for most of your life.
Noring away. There's a G at the beginning of that word.
GNAW-I-N-G. Noring away.
It looks like gnawing, but it's pronounced gnawing.
Noring away. Yeah. If something gnaws at something, you can imagine a little animal like a rodent, maybe a rat, a mouse, or a hamster, or maybe even a beaver biting at some wood, like biting it again and again and slowly wearing the wood down.
That's gnawing away at something.
Noring means like biting and chewing on something and slowly wearing it down.
You know, like the way a mouse would find a piece of...
I don't know. Well, mice kind of eat everything, right?
They might find a piece of fabric in the back of a cupboard and kind of chew on it, nor away at it.
And then when you get that piece of fabric out, you find all these holes in it.
Oh, god, look, this... this fabric's full of holes.
This mice have been gnawing away at it.
Or rats might nor away at electrical cables.
I've heard, because they will nor away everything.
But in this case, if something's gnawing away at you, it means it's kind of like there's something that is repeatedly bothering you, breaking something down, damaging it.
Sometimes we have thoughts which nor away at us, like negative thoughts or self-criticisms in the back of our head, which are always there, slowly breaking us down, right?
Or confidence issues which nor away at you, or thoughts which nor away at you.
So little negative things which are biting down repeatedly and wearing you away.
So this speech problem has been gnawing away at your speech for most of your life, creating gaps and distortions in your sentences.
The silver lining, so this is like the one positive part of it, this comes from the phrase, every cloud has a silver lining, which is another idiom, which means that every bad thing has something positive in it.
The silver lining, so the one single positive aspect of this, as you see it, is that your condition isn't as severe as it could have been.
It isn't as severe, isn't as serious or strong as it could have been.
You have bouts of fluency, bouts meaning periods of fluency, allowing you to pass as a normal member of society most of the time.
Even on bad days, the telltale signs of an incoming speech block can help you anticipate and avoid it.
Telltale signs. Right, the signs of something, the telltale signs of something, signs that give something away, that reveal something that you would rather keep secret.
Or the signs that reveal something, in this case, the signs that reveal that a speech block is coming.
So I don't know what that would feel like, maybe it's a certain feeling of tension in your throat or your mouth or something.
Like, uh-oh, our God, there's going to be a speech block coming.
These telltale signs of an incoming speech block can help you anticipate and avoid it.
So anticipate, expect something and maybe make arrangements to deal with it.
Expect something and deal with it.
To anticipate it and avoid it.
Using the tricks and techniques you've learned over the years.
So all right, this paragraph, this little bit.
Even on bad days, the telltale signs of an incoming speech block can help you anticipate and avoid it.
Using the tricks and techniques you've learned over the years.
So this person, or we have learned how to deal with these speech blocks and like we know how to tell when they're coming and anticipate them and find ways to avoid them or get around them.
But that doesn't always mean you'll get to say what you want or need to.
So we've learned ways of dealing with it, but it still doesn't mean that we can always say what we want.
Not every stutterer has the privilege of being able to hide it.
Right, some stutterers are able to hide it.
But among those who do hide it.
Some are more overt, meaning obvious.
And others more covert, meaning sort of like a little bit harder to notice.
Right, it seems that so people who have stutterers are often able to hide it.
But some for some people it's they can do it without anyone noticing other people it's more obvious.
What is your own approach to fluency?
Okay, so I try to speak my mind as much as possible, even if it means getting completely stuck at times.
Or I try my best to say what I want to, but blocks often cause me to change my plans.
Or I try to hide my stutter at all costs.
It's fluency or nothing.
Now I don't really have, I don't have a stutter, right?
I don't. I mean other than just the normal amounts of sort of little missteps that we make when we speak or when we sometimes trip over words.
That's just normal, but I don't really have, I don't have what could be considered as a genuine speech impediment.
I've just got the normal levels of impediments that we all deal with in our speaking.
So I don't think I have a stutter to hide.
Blocks, I don't really experience blocks.
So I guess it's the first one.
I try to speak my mind as much as possible, even if it means getting completely stuck at times.
Now as I said, I don't have a stutter, but I do sometimes get stuck.
I'll start a sentence and realise that I can't really continue it and have to start again.
That's just totally normal for native speakers of English.
In your first language, it's just normal to sort of miss start a sentence and have to start again, even if you don't have a stutter or stutter.
Okay, so it's got to be the first one for me.
So you feel it's important to avoid censoring yourself.
Meaning you want to just be genuine.
It can put you in an awkward situations when you try to hard to push against a block.
So okay, we've got to imagine we're in the mind of someone who genuinely does have a speech impediment then.
Okay, so let's continue the story with that in mind that we are someone who lives with a speech impediment.
So it can put you in awkward situations when you try to hard to push against a block.
So basically, I guess it can be embarrassing or something when you make a really obvious effort to avoid a speech block.
And block is the word that's used by people who have speech impediments to refer to those moments when they can't get their words out or when they find it impossible to say something.
But you'd rather be true to your thoughts even if it means being awkward.
So I suppose people who have speech impediments, stammer, stutters, they have to...
Sometimes they have...
If they can't say what they want to say because of a block, they end up having to say something different.
And I suppose that can mean that they end up having to say something that's not necessarily true or not really the genuine thing that they wanted to say.
They end up saying something else completely.
Right? So I suppose... I'm just opening the blind here.
I suppose that it's not just a case of finding other words to say what you want to say, but sometimes just saying something completely different, even if it's not...
You know, the true idea that you really mean.
So, but in this case, we've chosen to just try to say what we want, even if we get blocked and it becomes awkward, awkward meaning, embarrassing and uncomfortable.
Managing your sleep schedule and stress levels can help you have more good days, but sometimes it's just out of your control.
Judging by the fact that yesterday was full of blocks, and you still feel that familiar tightness lingering in your throat, kind of lingering staying around when you want it to go away, but it stays there.
You still feel that familiar tightness hanging around or lingering in your throat.
You already have a feeling that today is going to be rough, meaning it's not going to be smooth.
Rough is the opposite of smooth.
A smooth day is... You just pass through the day without real trouble, but rough would be the opposite.
You come across lots of difficulties and it's kind of like a difficult day.
Finding an excuse to stay in bed just a little longer, you finish perusing your to-do list, perusing meaning looking through it, reading through it.
We've got the to-do list here on the side of the screen.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5 things. The first thing is to call the store, so we have to call a shop for some reason, get present, looks like we need to buy a present for someone.
Meet friends. Dry cleaners, that means I guess taking some clothes to be cleaned or picking up some clothes that have been cleaned are the dry cleaners.
There's two ways you can clean your clothes, washing your clothes with water and detergent in a washing machine.
That's the most normal way.
You have your washing machine at home.
Take the clothes out there, wet and you dry them.
Otherwise you go to the dry cleaners, which is more expensive, a bit more specialised.
I don't entirely know how they do it.
I think they use chemicals or something, but you take your clothes to the dry cleaners.
It's got that special smell in the dry cleaners, which I quite like.
I don't know what it is. I suppose it's the process or chemicals they use to clean your clothes.
It's a bit mysterious the dry cleaners.
How do they do it? You just give your clothes, which are a bit dirty.
What are these mysterious smells in this place?
This slightly mysterious, almost scientific place where they take your clothes and then they murder do some special magic.
They give you back the clothes a week later and they're all perfectly clean and lovely.
They have a lot of those dry cleaners, those rails where all the clothes are hanging down in plastic bags, in C3 plastic bags.
Your ticket, you've got a ticket and it's got a number and your clothes are hanging from a certain numbered hook and they press a button and all the clothes go moving around the rails until your coat arrives.
It's just amazing. I love the dry cleaners.
That's the dry cleaners.
We need to go to the dry cleaners for some reason.
Then job interview, O.D.
there's a job interview at the end of the day which is going to be a stressful thing.
I don't know about you but when I have something like that to do, if it's hanging over me, knowing that I've got this stressful job interview later that day, that's going to make me feel uncomfortable and stressed.
I mean, I hope it's not a big important job interview because we've got lots of other things to do.
Remember what Natasha said in that recent episode about job interviews.
She said, just make sure you've got nothing else to do during the day before your interview because you don't need to have any complications.
Try and keep it simple. Make sure you've got nothing else to do except just be calm and relaxed and get to the job interview one time.
We've got this to do list before the job interview.
Of course, if we're feeling blocked already, I'm sure that's going to mean that the speech impediment might really make it difficult.
Remember the dream that we had the nightmare at the beginning of this, where we were in an office situation and we couldn't even say our own name.
Let's hope that doesn't come true but I'm already starting to feel a bit stressed.
I have to say, okay, all right, let's go.
So finding an excuse to stay in bed, you look at your to-do list, right, you have two big events planned for today.
Your friends birthday party and a big job interview.
You've split the day up into smaller steps.
So first, call the store to reserve your friends birthday present.
Fine, then pick up the present on your way to the restaurant.
Meet your friends for lunch.
Pick up your business attire and the dry cleaners business attire.
That means business clothing.
So in my case, that would be a suit.
And get to your job interview.
How do you feel about all these commitments?
So do we feel excited? Do we feel nervous or all of the above?
Well, I do. I'm already starting to feel a bit stressed.
So I feel a bit nervous. I feel nervous about the job interview.
But I'm also excited, you know, because I'm going to meet my friends.
It's going to be my friends birthday.
I'll be giving my friend a present.
And also we're going to go to the dry cleaners.
And as I've said already, I do.
Funnily enough, enjoy that.
The smell, the magic, the funny clothing rail, the electric automatic clothing rail that brings your jacket from all the way deep in the shop all the way out to the front.
And yeah, so I'm excited and nervous.
So I'm going to choose all of the above.
Excited and nervous. Okay, so torn between excitement and apprehension, you're anticipating the ups and downs that today will bring.
If you're torn between something, it means you're between two things and you're torn.
So torn like the way a piece of paper is torn or a piece of fabric is torn.
Right? If you pull on a shirt, for example, if one person's grabbed your shirt and you've grabbed the other side.
And you pull the shirt will tear.
The shirt will be torn. Right?
Same thing with paper if you pull the two sides.
The paper will... Paper will tear, right?
I'll use that paper later on, don't worry.
So torn between excitement and apprehension, if you're torn between two things, it means that you're stuck between them and you can't quite decide which one.
For example, I don't know what would it be.
You know, slight you go to the shop because you want to buy some chocolate digestive biscuits.
But you're like, oh, do I get the milk chocolate digestives or the dark chocolate digestives?
Oh God, milk chocolate or dark chocolate?
Oh God, I can't decide, I can't.
I'm torn between milk chocolate and dark chocolate.
Clearly a major problem, as you can imagine.
So it's torn between two things.
In this case, we are torn between excitement and apprehension.
If you're apprehensive, it means you're nervous about something that's going to happen.
You are feeling a bit unsure about something that's going to happen.
You're kind of feeling nervous and unsure before something.
So we're torn between these two feelings, feeling excitement and feeling apprehensive.
You're anticipating the ups and downs that that today will bring.
So we're looking forward to, you know, looking at the day, thinking, oh, it's going to be a complicated day.
There'll be great moments.
There'll be challenging moments.
There'll be ups and downs.
You just have to focus on getting through the day, stay in control of your speech and make a good impression on the interviewer tonight.
Filled with an indescribable mix of feelings.
So this is a mix of feelings that we can't describe.
It's indescribable. Filled with an indescribable mix of feelings.
You get started on your morning routine and choose your outfit for the casual restaurant part of your head, too.
So we need to choose our outfit.
We need to choose what we're going to wear.
Here are the options. So good old T-shirt and jeans, a classic look, that is what I would normally wear.
Or a button down shirt, that's a shirt where the collar has little buttons.
So the collar's buttoned down.
A buttoned down shirt and dress pants.
Classy and versatile. Dress pants, this is definitely American English.
I'm assuming dress pants would mean smart trousers.
Right? The kinds of maybe chinos or the sort of trousers that you might wear with a suit.
So a button down shirt and dress pants.
So this is the sort of thing I would wear at work, I have to say.
I don't wear a full suit at work with a jacket and tie.
But I wear a buttoned down shirt.
I do wear sort of dark trousers, maybe a pair of chinos.
So this classy and versatile, versatile meaning that you can use it for all sorts of different situations.
Or do we go for a tank top, sleeveless vest and capri pants, stylish and funky?
What are capri pants? OK, so having checked, capri pants are kind of like trousers.
Normally trousers that I guess girls wear that are short.
So they might stop at the knee or maybe stop just below the knee.
These are capri pants. So it's not really, not really business clothing, I guess, especially a tank top, a sleeveless vest, stylish and funky.
OK, or a dress and stockings both elegant and cute.
Well, I don't normally wear a dress when I go out.
So that's not the sort of thing I would choose.
But if I was a girl, what would I wear?
Now, I have to say, like, I would probably go for the T-shirt and jeans, like whether I'm a girl or a boy, whatever, just like for me now me, I mean, I, yeah, as myself, I would wear T-shirt and jeans.
But considering the day, the fact that we've got a job interview at the end of the day, I think it would be wise to choose clothes that I could potentially wear to the job interview if things don't go according to plan.
So I'm going to go with a button down shirt and the trousers.
OK, so you finish up your preparations and get dressed.
The only thing left to do before leaving is to call the store to ensure your friends burn.
They present will be ready for pickup.
So I have to call the shop or the store in American English.
We say shop in British English normally.
I've got to call the store, the shop.
And just to make sure that the present is ready and that it will be there when I go to pick it up.
She, that's my friend, requested a new and popular card game.
And as they're apparently flying off the shelves, meaning these, this card game, these games are selling really, really quickly.
Right, people are buying them.
They're flying off the shelves.
Meaning they're, they're people are buying them and taking them off the shelves.
They're selling really well.
You'd better call the store as it opens to make sure that you're buying them.
To make sure there's a copy set aside for you.
So when the store opens, I'm going to call them just to make sure that they've got a copy of the game set aside.
They've kept it on one side for me.
Unfortunately, phone calls tend to aggravate your stutter and make it worse and make your blocks all the more inconvenient due in part to the lack of nonverbal communication.
I sort of understand a little bit.
I can empathize with that a bit.
Like when I have to make phone calls in French, I, I dread that a little bit like having to make a phone call in French is quite frightening because it because I can't rely on sort of nonverbal communication, which I actually use quite a lot.
You know, I use it to help support my dodgy French, you know, I can just gesture point at things just generally use my body language.
So apparently phone calls make the stutter and blocks worse and the story continues.
Hopefully this one will go smoothly.
Right, let's see. We're going to click on it.
You steal yourself for a moment to steal yourself and kind of like make yourself sort of prepare yourself, make yourself strong.
Like, right, get yourself ready.
Okay. Let's go. You steal yourself for a moment, then steal spell ST, E, E, L, like the metal.
So you can imagine is not making yourself into the man of steel or the, you know, the woman of steel.
Or we'll be strong now. Let's go.
You steal yourself for a moment, then dial the store's number.
Ring, ring, ring, the phone rings.
You can already feel your stutter coming on.
A horrible, diffused tension that's impossible to unwind.
Making its way everywhere between your palate and your chest.
This is how it feels when a stutter is coming on, when a stutter is arriving or starting to happen.
A diffuse tension. So a general sense of tension that's spread around that's impossible to unwind.
Normally you unwind tension, meaning you kind of let the tension unravel.
To wind something will be to twist something round and round until it gets all tight.
Can I use an example? I've got like a little bag here that's used in my podcasting room for a piece of equipment, right?
But if I twist the bag up, you can't see this audio listeners, but I'm twisting a little pocket that you might put a camera in or something.
Twist and twisting it up and it gets all tight.
As you twist something like a piece of fabric round and round, it gets all tight and tense.
When you let it go, it unwinds and becomes relaxed.
You have this feeling of this tension that's arriving and it's impossible to unwind.
You can't get rid of it. Making its way, meaning moving everywhere between your palate, that's part of your mouth, the sort of roof of your mouth and your chest.
So all the way through your vocal tract is this feeling of tension.
So on the telephone, a deep friendly voice greets you.
Hi, this is the game tower.
How can I help you? Now what we want to say is, hey, I'm calling to reserve a game.
It's in green, so apparently this is fairly difficult to say.
So, hey, I'm calling to reserve a game.
It's what you want to say.
Let's click on that. Hey, I'm calling to reserve a game.
So far so good. The tightness is lurking in the back of your throat.
Meaning it's sort of staying there.
In a slightly scary way.
The tightness is lurking in the back of your throat like a goblin would lurk in the back of a cave.
So no one can see it. The tightness is lurking in the back of your throat, but it hasn't spiked up to block you from speaking this time.
So it hasn't like come out and spiked you and stopped you.
Sure, what game are you looking for?
Says the person. You pull up the note you've made for yourself.
So we've made a note. And what we want to say is it's called tricky troubling trivia.
Tricky troubling trivia.
So this is some sort of quiz game, but that's quite...
You can imagine that would be quite difficult to say.
Can you say that? Tricky troubling trivia.
Can you say it? It's called tricky troubling trivia.
That's what you want to say.
Let's try. Now that's in yellow, so that's more difficult to say.
It's... Here we go. It's called tricky troubling trivia.
An unpleasant block, but it was still manageable.
That could have been worse.
Yes, we have a few. I can set one aside for you if you want.
Yes, please. Perfect. I'll just need to write down your name, and you can ask for the game when you come in.
Oh no. Your name always seems to give you trouble.
Maybe because unlike most other words, there's just no way to replace or circumvent it if you block.
Right, you can't replace your name with another word.
You can't circumvent it.
You can't go round it if you block.
You take a breath and repeat Luke in your head over and over.
So in your head, Luke, Luke, Luke, Luke.
Not look. Not look. Luke, you repeat it in your head, trying to soothe your tense jaw, trying to make it relax.
You can faintly hear ambient noises at the end of the line as the clerk, as the person working in the shop, waits for your answer.
So you're there in your head going Luke in your head, and you can hear sort of the sounds of...
You can just hear things going on in the background.
So what you want to say is, it's Luke.
That's what we want to say, but this is written in red, so this is going to be difficult.
It's... Sorry. The sound is completely stuck.
You try again with a different sentence.
My name is... You keep trying to push through, but it's not helping.
Sorry, I think it's cutting out, says the person.
Using another trick you've learned, you count down from three before making another attempt, hoping to work up enough momentum to get through the block once and for all.
So here's another trick, counting down from three.
Luke, building up momentum, if you can build up the momentum.
We can get through the block.
So three, two, hello, says the person.
You open your mouth again, click, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
He hung up. Meaning he put the phone down or clicked stop on his phone.
He ended the call. He hung up.
Damn. Before we could get our name out, before we could get the name out, he hung up.
Okay. I've an achievement unlocked.
Get hung up on. So I got hung up on.
To get hung up on is when you're speaking to someone on the phone and they hang up on you.
As the taunting dial tone keeps ringing in your ear, you let slip your expletive of choice.
So the dial tone is still going beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, the dial tone and you, you, you swear.
You let slip your expletive of choice.
So for me, it will be Pollux.
One of my favorite British swear words.
Pollux. What's your favorite expletive?
I'm going to write Pollux because I mean, that's technically a rude word.
It's a swear word. It's an expletive.
That's an expletive is a swear word, a rude word.
It's not that bad, but you know, here we go.
Pollux. Reflexively dialing back.
So just automatically dialing back.
You get no answer. They're probably busy dealing with customers.
You may as well just head straight to the store.
So you know, why not? Let's just go straight to the store.
We may as well go there. This as good as, like may as well or might as well do something means this is as good as any other option.
So let's do it. Okay. You may as well just head to the store with any luck.
They'll still have some copies in stock.
Let's hope so. Ready to face the world.
You head out to the nearest bus stop.
Let's go. You get to the bus stop just a little early and a few people are waiting already already waiting.
As you wait for the bus, you think to yourself.
So we've got three options of what to think to ourselves.
So option one, I wish I had a car.
Option two, I'm glad I get to skip the morning traffic, meaning I'm glad I get you know, on the bus, you can skip the traffic jams.
I'm glad I get to skip the morning traffic.
Or thirdly, I wonder what to make for supper.
Meaning I wonder what to make for dinner.
I wish I had a car. I'm glad I get to skip the morning traffic.
I wonder what to make for supper.
I think I'm going to say I'm glad I get to skip the morning traffic.
I'm assuming that there's a bus lane, which means the bus can just pass the lines of traffic.
So I'm glad I get to skip the morning traffic.
Okay. As you wait for the bus, you think to yourself, I'm glad I get to skip the morning traffic.
When the bus pulls up, meaning when the bus comes over to the side of the road and stops, when the bus pulls up, you climb on, climb up the steps, and reach for your public transportation card.
I've got my travel card here.
The driver, a stocky middle aged woman, stocky means that she's kind of like, maybe a little bit large, but not tall.
So she's a bit short and big, right?
A stocky middle aged woman, the bus driver greets every passenger with a jolly, good morning, as they step in front of the card scanner.
So as each passenger steps in front of the card scanner with their public transportation card, the driver says, good morning, in a friendly way.
You know her well, and she's often been kind to you in the past, even lingering for a few moments, meaning staying.
We had lingering before, right?
Staying, not going away, staying for a few moments, whenever she sees you run to catch the bus.
So she's nice. Sometimes she waits, she lingers there.
If you're running to catch the bus, she'll stay, she won't just drive away.
So she's nice. And we know her.
When your turn comes, how do you greet her?
So, right, so we can say, good morning, or we can say, hi, but both of those are in red, which means that there, for some reason, there's, it's going to be difficult to say these things.
So we say, good morning or hi, or do we stay silent?
We could play it safe and stay silent and just get on the bus without saying anything, but we don't want to do that, right?
We don't want to do that because this woman's, this bus driver's nice, and she's friendly to everyone.
And it would be rude. It would be rude to stay silent, even though it's going to be, is definitely going to be difficult to say, good morning or hi.
I mean, I'm noticing parallels here between this and learning another language in the sense that sometimes when you're dealing with situations in another language, sometimes you just, if you're, especially if you're feeling bad that day, if you've failed to do something in your target language, you know, in your other language.
For me, it's French. For you, it might be English.
If you fail to do something in English that day, and you've had a bad experience like you've got something wrong, you feel embarrassed.
Sometimes you don't really want to have to talk to anyone or say anything.
But then again, you don't want to be rude to people.
So it's a tricky thing. Sometimes you're torn between just wanting to, to just be quiet for a while and wanting to be polite.
So what should we do? Good morning or hi.
Let's try good morning.
I know it could be awkward, but let's, let's hope that this woman is going to be kind and understanding if we can't say it.
It's better than just being silent and rude.
We've got to make an effort.
So let's try and say good morning.
And hope it's not going to be too embarrassing.
You step up and scan your card.
Beep. When the driver greets you, you smile and open your mouth, but your reply gets stuck in your throat.
She's already looking away from you, and she can't hear the quiet sounds you're making, as you try to push the words out.
A few seconds later, as you're still struggling, she pulls on a lever to close the doors.
The bus starts moving. You realize you're beginning to look foolish, still standing there trying to say good morning.
So you start walking towards the back.
It's a bit embarrassing.
You plop down into an empty seat.
You kind of like, drop down into an empty seat.
So you smile, try and say something.
Luckily the bus driver didn't seem to be too bothered.
She was just busy dealing with driving the bus and stuff.
But you did end up standing there for a while, kind of going, and then just walking to the back of the bus or something.
Okay, during the bus ride, tonight's job interview trots back into your mind to trot.
This is what a horse does.
So the job interview walks, is like an animal walking into your heart and like, here comes the job interview.
Hello, it's trotted into your mind.
So basically comes into your mind.
You reflect on the fluency techniques you've had to teach yourself over the years.
You kind of think about those techniques that you've tried to work on for dealing with fluency, trying to make yourself more fluent.
You reflect on those things.
Think about them again, hoping that they'll prove more helpful tonight than they were in that phone call.
Paraphraises, meaning saying things in different words, filler words, adding little words to perhaps add momentum or just just keep talking, even though you can't find the word you're looking for.
Rhythm and tone changes.
So you lose yourself in thought on the bus.
Uh oh, are we going to miss our stop?
What's going to happen?
Anyway, we're lost in thought, thinking about how to manage the blocks and the issues that we're dealing with.
Oh dear, we've got some sort of daydream, eight years old, therapist's office.
You're seeing a therapist for the first time.
At his request, you tell him about your day.
He doesn't listen, but he hears your every block and stumble.
He looks up at your parents, your eight years old at this point.
I think your child might have some issues with confidence.
I hear a lot of anxiety. That's probably causing the stutter.
He turns to you. Try to finish thinking about what you want to say before you start talking.
That might make things easier.
You pipe up, meaning you have something to say, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, I, I, I, I, I, he smiles.
Try to relax, slow down, take a deep breath.
You take a deep breath. It doesn't help.
You want to tell him that you already know what you want to say, but the session is over.
Your parents take you outside.
You ask them whether it's your fault that you stutter.
Is it my fault that I stutter?
They don't say yes, but they don't say no either.
You think to yourself, it must be my fault or there must be something wrong with me or you think they probably wish they had a normal kid.
That's sad, isn't it? As an eight-year-old, what would you think?
It must be my fault. There must be something wrong with me.
They probably wish they had a normal kid.
God, you probably think all of those things, right?
You're going to think all of those things.
There must be something wrong with me.
Let's go with that. That seems to be the most sort of, I guess, the least harsh thing to think.
But they're all, they're not nice things to think to yourself, especially as an eight-year-old.
We've snapped out of the daydream.
You snap out of your thoughts as the bus approaches the mall that houses the game store.
That was a really horrible memory from your past where the therapist, so your parents clearly have taken you to a therapist because they think something is wrong with you psychologically, something wrong with your confidence, something to do with confidence issues, which is causing the stutter.
They've got it the wrong way round.
They think that the stutter is caused by some other psychological issue.
You can imagine that the parents are upset, they're frustrated, that they want to fix this problem.
They take you to a therapist, but the therapist doesn't understand the issue.
The therapist is trying to get to the bottom of the psychological causes for the stutter, but it's the other way round.
The stutter is just caused by just connections in the brain that aren't wired normally.
If a child is suffering with confidence issues, it's because of the stutter, it's not the other way round.
You can imagine how that misdiagnosis is going to cause a lot of psychological problems.
It's going to exacerbate the situation where the child is going to feel guilty, they're going to feel like it's their fault, they're going to feel ashamed.
They're going to feel that their parents see them as a problem, they're going to think their parents don't want them.
It's a horrible memory, daydream that just came into our mind.
Anyway, you snap out of your thoughts as the bus approaches the mall, the shopping centre, that houses the game store.
This is where the game store is.
You find your way to the shop and are greeted by shelves full of colourful board games.
As you walk up to the counter, you think back on your phone conversation and feel a rush of embarrassment or shame or shame.
Thinking about the phone conversation where you try to reserve the game and you couldn't say your name and the person hung up the phone.
How do you feel? You feel embarrassed, you feel ashamed or you feel angry.
Embarrassment, shame or anger.
It's going to be all three of them again, isn't it?
Embarrassment, shame or anger.
Depends on the day, I can imagine feeling any of those things.
Embarrassment, shame, anger.
I'm going to feel anger today.
It's just so annoying. I just feel so annoyed that I can't do something as simple as reserving a game for my friend.
I'm just saying my name.
It would be infuriating, wouldn't it?
So anger is how I feel. The employee at the register welcomes you with a smile and you initiate the conversation.
Hi, do you have tricky troubling trivia?
We actually said it. I think we already sold out actually, Pollux.
You let her know you try to, I don't think you should say Pollux in front of someone like that.
I have to say, that's more the thing I would say on my own, but I would probably say damn.
Or I might say, what would I say that's not a rude word?
Damn. Oh, damn, I would say.
You let her know you tried to call earlier to reserve a copy.
I tried to call earlier.
Her colleague walks over, meaning her colleague comes over.
Walks over means come. Walks from one place close to where you are.
Her colleague walks over as she looks through the pile of reserved games.
Oh, were you the one who called about tricky troubling trivia?
I'd put it aside for you.
She pulls the game out right as he finishes his sentence.
Okay. You thank the both of them, relieved to have secured the last copy after all.
Oh, that's a relief, isn't it?
So the person actually did put it aside.
He chuckles lightly. I wasn't sure if you'd come.
The call died right at the worst time.
I'm glad it all worked out.
So this person assumed that there was a problem on the line.
But he held the game anyway, that was nice.
So what are we going to do?
Just play along and pretend your signal was bad.
So just kind of pretend like, yeah, the phone, yeah, just play along and let him know or let him think that it was a problem with the phone connection.
Or do we let him know what really happened?
I think in this case, because we just, it's just a transaction.
We just want the game. We just need to go.
I don't think it's necessary to tell him actually, you know what the reason why the reason there was a problem is because I have a speech impediment.
And sometimes it's really, really difficult for me to say my own name.
I know it's crazy isn't it?
It's so annoying. But thanks so much for putting it to one side.
That seems to be unnecessarily complicated.
I think we just need to go, yeah, yeah, yeah, the phone, problem with the phone.
Thanks for the game. Have a nice day.
I think we'd probably just go with the first one.
Seems to be the easier option.
Let's do that. You laugh along.
Yeah, and curse your terrible signal as you make your purchase.
You're like, yeah, yeah, God, my phone signal is terrible.
Thanks a lot. When you turn towards the exit, you feel, how do you feel?
You feel relieved? You feel disappointed?
Or do you feel conflicted?
Now you might feel relieved in the sense that, okay, got the game.
Everything's fine. But you might feel a bit disappointed too, because you might feel like, oh, well, it's a pity to just, it's a pity that he doesn't know the truth.
And it's like you also think, it's a pity that I'm too embarrassed, or maybe it's too inconvenient for me to actually tell him what really happened.
Would you feel conflicted?
Conflicted again means like your torn.
There's a conflict between two things.
Your torn between maybe feeling relieved and a bit disappointed.
I would feel conflicted.
I feel relieved. I'm like, thank God I got the game.
Fine, let's carry on with the day.
But there would be that feeling, gnawing away at you.
I've like, yeah, but it would be good if people understood what I was really going through rather than just thinking it was a problem with the telephone.
I don't like to live like that.
I don't like to, I want people to know the truth for goodness sake.
So you'd feel conflicted, I reckon.
Anyway, game in hand, you leave the mall and head towards the restaurant where you're meeting your friends for lunch, which is conveniently within walking distance.
You're already drooling at the thought of the meal awaiting you.
So you're not literally drooling, I suppose.
But to drool is when, like Homer Simpson, from the Simpson's, Simpson's, Homer Simpson from the Simpson's, when he thinks of pizza, when someone says pizza, he goes, ah, pizza, and a bit of drool comes out the side of his mouth.
Ah, pizza. And he starts drooling.
So drooling is the drool is like saliva, which would come out of your mouth because your mouth is watering because you're so hungry.
So you're already drooling at the thought of the meal awaiting you.
Not literally, I suppose.
But you're basically like, ah, yes.
Lovely food coming soon.
You looked up the menu earlier.
So we checked on the internet, we checked the menu earlier.
And we're delighted to note that they have your favourite food.
So you looked at the menu, ah, awesome, they've got my favourite food.
What is our favourite food?
We're going to find out.
What's your favourite food?
Oh, okay, what is my favourite food?
Pizza. I'm just going to go with pizza.
Mm-hmm. Because I'm feeling like home or Simpson today.
Oh, pizza. Pizza, yes. Coincidentally, they also serve your least favourite food.
Oh my god, what's my least favourite food?
I like most things. I like most things.
But I tell you what I don't like is that French sausage, which is called, oh, what's he called?
Oh, god. What's he called?
And we yet. And we yet. Have you heard of that?
French people are like, oh, god, yes.
Some French people are like, yes, I love it.
What's wrong with Andreette?
Um, Andreette is a sausage, which is made from...
Is it like the intestines?
I know sausages are often made from that part, but it's like the lower intestine or something.
All right, hold on. Andreette, according to Wikipedia.
Ugh, ugh, no. It looks like it could be quite good.
But for me, no. Andreette is a French coarse grained sausage made from the intestine.
That's the parts of the stomach of pork, pepper, wine, onions and seasonings.
Andreette's generally made from the large intestine.
Um, true Andreettes are rarely seen outside France and have a strong, distinctive odor coming from the colon.
Oh, dear, the colon... colon is part of the lower intestine, isn't it?
Oh, basically it's disgusting.
It's just like a disgusting part of the body that I feel like we shouldn't really be eating.
Some of you out there go, we shouldn't be eating animals' bodies anyway.
But, I mean, yeah, maybe.
But, um, certainly the colon.
Not just leave it alone, guys.
Just leave it. You know, anyway, the Andreette it stinks and it's disgusting.
Sorry, French people. I love a lot of the other food, but just leave the colon alone.
Please. You're at the table in the restaurant.
Someone next to you is ordered an Andreette and you're like, well, God.
There's different grades of them as well.
They come in different grades, different layers of strength.
Oh, dear, they also serve my least favourite food, which is definitely Andreette.
Yuck. Um, all right, where were we here?
Okay. All right. They also serve my least favourite food, Andreette.
You'd have to be pretty desperate to ever eat that.
As the building comes into view, you feel anticipation bubbling up.
Ooh, anticipation. Ooh, this is going to be exciting.
You know, anticipation again, thinking about what's going to happen, thinking about what's coming.
It's bubbling up. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
You love spending time with your friends, but talking can still feel daunting, like a big difficult challenge.
It can feel daunting, even around them.
Your frequent blocks certainly don't go unnoticed, meaning your friends still notice your blocks.
And anyone close to you is probably used to them, but you're not sure anyone understands your condition as anything more than a strange quirk.
So, like, they're your friends, they don't mind, really, they're used to it.
But you still feel that people don't really understand your condition as more than a strange quirk, like a strange just like a quirky aspect of your personality.
Like, you're just a bit kind of like, oh, kind of like, oh, Luke's just sort of a bit different, isn't he?
He's just going to quirky, you know, he's got the problem with his speech, but it's just like a thing.
There's something just a bit strange about him.
Early attempts to discuss it in your social circles were met with well-intentioned, but misguided, I started to, at best.
So, when we've tried to discuss it with our friends, these attempts to discuss it were met with well-intentioned comments, but misguided comments.
So, your attempts were met with something, means that when you tried to do something, the consequence or response that you got, was that people made comments that were well-intentioned, they had good intentions, they wanted to be nice, but they were misguided, so they didn't know what they were talking about.
So, when we've tried to talk about it before with our friends, they've just replied with nice things, but things that show that they didn't understand what they were talking about.
Well-intentioned, but misguided comments.
Like, I started to, and complete disinterest at worst.
So, the best that they said was like, oh yeah, I started as well, and the worst was that they just didn't seem to care.
Which is a bit of a pity. It's been years now, and friends have come and gone, but you haven't had the heart to bring up the topic with any group ever since.
Oh, that's sad. So, we've discussed it before with friends, but they didn't really understand.
And so, as a result, we've never really talked about it with other friends since.
On that thought, you get to your destination and you venture inside, so you go inside.
Luke, you look around and quickly spot your friends, enthusiastically waving at you from a large booth.
A booth is like a closed-off seating area.
You're seemingly the last to arrive.
We seem to be the last to arrive.
We are seemingly the last.
A chorus of haze and haze erupts as you take a seat.
Right, they're, pfft, these lots of people saying, hi, hey, hey, hey, as you take a seat.
Noticing the presence already strewn about the table, the presence are already spread around the table, you know, sort of haphazard way, as if a clemantine has already opened the presence and they're scattered around the table.
Oh no, she hasn't opened them yet.
Anyway, the presence already on the table in different places.
They are strewn about the table.
You pull out your own and hand it to the birthday girl.
Happy birthday, clemantine.
This is what we want to say.
It's written in green, so it might be a little bit difficult to say this.
What we say it, she beams with happiness, broom, like light coming out of her torch or something.
Broom, she beams with happiness and thanks you effusively, so she's like really enthusiastically thanks you.
Oh, I can't wait to try it with you guys, so she can't wait to play the game.
The waitress wastes no time taking orders and before you know it, she's already almost up to your seat.
So she's, the waitress is taking the orders and she's nearly, she's nearly ready to take our order.
So what will it be for you?
What will it be for you? She says, what will it be for you?
Well, yeah. Fitting a familiar tension swirling in your throat, you turn to face her, open your mouth and, oh, bollocks.
So for some reason, pizza is in red.
Andriette is in green. I can't believe that on do yet is easier to say than pizza, but you know, like it's a bit mysterious, isn't it having a stammer or stutter?
But pizza is in red, it's the most difficult.
On do yet is in green. And then we've got a middle option which is same as her.
Right, same as her. So that's whenever the other person had, we're going to have the same as her.
Or we've got another option which is blue, which I suppose is easier to do.
Well, it doesn't involve speaking.
And that's just point at pizza.
Point out pizza on a menu.
So you can either, we can either sort of fail to say pizza or we'll probably succeed in saying on do yet.
I'm surprised it's available in this American restaurant, but still.
Or we can say same as her and just hope that she didn't order an on do yet.
Or we can point out pizza on a menu.
There's no way I'm ordering on do yet.
There's just no way in hell I'm going to order that at this party with friends around.
They're all going to smell it.
They'll think it's disgusting.
Out of the question, I'm not having on do yet.
All right. I could try and say pizza, but it's going to be embarrassing, but I want a pizza.
Okay, I'm going to point to hell with it.
I'm pointing at pizza on the menu.
Let's just let's just do that.
I just want my food, please.
Okay, I'm going to point at pizza.
This might be a bit embarrassing.
Maybe she's going to think that I'm I can't speak or something who knows.
Let's just do it. You look around frantically, hoping you can point to the item on a menu, but they've all been collected already.
So there's no there are no menus around.
God, all right. So what we're going to do, try and say pizza.
Let's just try and say pizza.
Come on, let's do it. Come on, please be forgiving.
I'd like the I'd like the you struggle for what feels like an eternity under the weight of the waitresses gaze.
So the waitress is staring at you.
You can feel it heavy on you.
The weight of the waitresses gaze, meaning her staring at you.
You struggle for ages. Finally, you manage to make her understand what you want and she leaves.
You try to distract yourself from your hunger by tuning into the discussion that started up as you were ordering.
So while I was ordering, people are talking about something.
Everyone is sharing some of their best jokes and laughing along.
Now, okay, jokes. Now's your chance to share one of your own.
What do you contribute?
Now telling jokes is difficult.
Don't you think it is? We've all been there.
We've all tried to tell a joke and got it wrong.
And if you even if you stumble over the setup or the punch line, they'll often ruin the joke.
You know, even if it's just a simple joke, why was six afraid of seven because seven eight nine?
Right, you get that one right.
Why was six? Why was the number six afraid of the number seven because seven eight nine?
Okay. That's a simple one.
But if you get it wrong, why was six afraid of seven?
You know, timing is so important.
Why was six afraid of seven?
Everyone goes, I don't know.
Why was six afraid of seven because seven eight nine?
It's just going to ruin the joke and everyone's going to go, uh, is anyone else going to jokes?
So anyway, we've got, we've got three jokes that we can tell here, but they're all written in red, which means they're all going to be difficult to say, but we want to be able to tell our joke, right?
Okay, here are three jokes for you listeners.
First of all, I'm going to tell you the jokes and I'll probably have to explain them.
I've never seen these jokes before in my life.
I've no idea if they're any good.
And then we'll decide which joke we're going to try and say.
Or we're going to choose to stay silent, which is again sad.
Because when people are gathering around telling jokes, it's fun to contribute.
And I like to tell jokes.
So I would like, I would, I want to be part of this.
So all right, here are the three jokes, the first one.
What is the most surprised soup?
What soup is the most surprised soup?
Yes, soup that you eat? What is the most surprised soup?
The answer, gaspacho. Gaspacho.
Gaspacho. Gaspacho. All right, so gasp is go, that's to gasp.
Like when you're very surprised.
Okay, I don't know what's just happened.
Like you ordered the fish and the fish arrives on your table and you're about to try and eat it.
And the fish comes alive and jumps off the table.
It'd be very surprised, wouldn't you?
You'd gasp. So anyway, what's the most surprised soup?
Gaspacho. Because gaspacho soup is a type of soup, right?
Gaspacho. Okay, it's not the best joke ever.
Second joke is, why did the plant get a degree?
Why did the plant get a degree?
That's a university degree.
Why did the plant like a flower or a plant that grows out of the ground?
Why did the plant get a degree?
Because it wanted a career in STEM fields.
STEM fields are, I'm not entirely sure I get the joke, what are STEM fields?
I mean, now we've got STEM cells, but what are STEM fields?
Maybe this is like STEM.
Okay, STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math or Maths in British English.
So STEM relates to certain academic areas.
Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths, these are STEM fields.
So why did the, and you get the joke?
Why did the plant get a degree?
Because it wanted a career in STEM fields.
Science, Technology, Engineering or Maths.
STEM though, STEM, the central part of a plant is the STEM of the plant.
So the STEM is the main thing in the middle of the plant and the branches or the leaves come out from the STEM.
So that's the STEM, it's the main body of a plant.
Okay, it's just a play on words.
It wanted a career in STEM fields.
STEM plants, okay, oh dear.
How did Pavlov keep his hair soft?
Pavlov, you know Pavlov, he's the guy famous for, was it behavioral conditioning?
Right, Pavlov's dog. You know that experiment, if you heard about that, where basically Pavlov's dog.
So Pavlov, Pavlov, let's say, came up with a theory of conditioning, which is that certain behavior that we have happens as a result of certain stimuli.
So the, I think the experiment went like this.
Pavlov had a dog. Every time he fed the dog, food, he would ring a bell.
So he'd give the dog food, being, ding-ding, ring the bell.
Okay, so, and when, when he gave the, the, the dog food, the, the dog would drool.
Remember that? It would salivate.
It's mouth would water.
So he'd give food to the dog, the dog would drool and he would ring the bell.
Right? Every single time.
And eventually, through conditioning, through the association of the bell ringing and the food being there, he would eventually be able to just ring the bell and the dog would drool.
So he conditioned, he learned or proved, maybe, that we, our behavior can be conditioned.
It can be defined or created by certain stimuli.
Okay, that's called conditioning.
He said, setting up the joke.
So how did Pavlov keep his hair soft?
He conditioned it. Okay, because conditioner is something you put on your hair to keep it soft.
You often have shampoo and a conditioner.
Shampoo cleans the hair.
Conditioner conditions your hair and makes it soft, right?
Shampoo and conditioner.
How did Pavlov keep his hair soft?
He conditioned it. Okay, that's the best of the three jokes, but it's going to be tough.
It's going to be really hard to say this.
How did Pavlov keep his hair soft?
He conditioned it. I hope that my friends have a basic understanding of psychological testing and psychology.
Anyway, we're going to go for that.
Right. You pipe up with your own joke and their amused looks turned to you.
So you kind of say, how, how did, and everyone turns to you, ready for your joke?
How did, how did Pavlov, get his hair so soft?
He, he, he, uh, bollocks.
That totally ruined your joke.
You're trying to twist the phrasing a bit, looking for a way to get past this horribly timed block.
But Jamie suddenly interjects.
Oh, I've got one. So three chess pieces walk into a pawn shop.
Oh, dear. So how do we feel?
And what we're going to say that this really sucks.
Or do we say, well, you know what?
Maybe it's for the best.
If something, if you say, maybe it's for the best, maybe that means that what happened is ultimately the best, the best thing.
So maybe this, maybe this was the best thing that could have happened.
But Jamie interjects and starts telling a joke and distracts everyone.
Probably is maybe for the, it's probably for the best, isn't it?
Because if they wouldn't have laughed at the joke anyway.
So it's, maybe it's for the best.
But it's true that really sucks.
But maybe it's for the best ultimately.
The achievement unlocked, satisfied, eat a delicious meal.
Yeah. Okay. So we've, we were there to eat food and have fun with our friends.
Nevermind. If the joke didn't work.
The rest of the meal goes by fairly uneventfully.
You manage to sprinkle some comments here and there.
But for the most part, everyone is too busy eating to talk much.
You happily save your food, meaning enjoy it.
Mmm, yum yum yum. Lovely pizza.
And still feel a bit peckish after finishing it.
Peckish means still a bit, peckish is a bit hungry.
Oh, I'm a bit peckish. Fancy a bit of food.
Still peckish. Still peckish after finishing the pizza.
Clamantine offers to buy you dessert.
A grateful smile finds its way to your lips as you process her offer.
So she says, hey, enjoy to buy you dessert and you smile.
And then you think about, hmm, what would I like?
You're really in the mood for something sweet.
When the waitress makes her, when the, when the waitress makes her rounds when she comes round, what do you order?
Now all of these things are written in yellow.
So they're all going to be quite difficult to say.
So ice cream cake, fruit salad or nothing.
And nothing is easy to say.
Ice cream cake or fruit salad ice cream, please.
Come on, I want ice cream.
I'm going to try and order ice cream, even though it's going to be difficult.
You likely stutter your way through your order ice ice cream.
Soon everyone is chit chatting while enjoying the drinks and dessert and Clementine decides to christen your present.
Meaning she decides to basically to, she decides to christen your present.
I suppose this means to open it to start it.
Right? Despite its name, it seems to be a fairly straightforward trivia game.
She pulls out a card. Okay, the category is movies.
You focus intently as you listen to the clue she reads aloud because we like movies.
We're pretty good at movie trivia.
It hits you almost immediately.
She's describing your favorite movie.
Oh God, what's my favorite movie?
It's impossible to decide what my favorite movie is.
A few years ago, I would have said Star Wars, but nah.
I've kind of grown out of it, I think.
What is my favorite movie?
At the moment, I'm going to say spinal tap.
Now three amigos. Three amigos is my favorite film at the moment.
Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, Martin Short, fantastic comedy film.
That's the one with the speech about your own personal El Guapo.
For us, El Guapo happens to be a big scary man who wants to kill us.
That bit. Three amigos.
Okay. She's describing your favorite movie.
The point is yours. If you manage to say the answer out loud, unfortunately you feel a heavy block coming on.
Try to spit out the title anyway, is my first option, or stall for time by pretending you forgot the title.
What do we do? Do we just try and say three amigos?
Wait a minute. I've got it.
I've got it. I've got it.
I've got it. You need to do something like that.
While you stall for time, while you try and persuade your mouth to say three amigos.
So saying the title quickly is really difficult.
Stalling for time is easier.
Let's try that. Oh, I think I know what it is.
Wait, it's on the tip of my tongue.
It starts with a number.
Someone else excitedly shouts three amigos and gets the point.
Yeah, that's what I was going to say too.
You feel a little dejected.
You know that movie by heart and it feels a little wrong to pretend that you forgot about it.
Like you want your friends to know that you got that one.
After a few more rounds, which you didn't know the answers to anyway, the game is put away and everyone slowly prepares to leave.
Among the last minute chatter, your friends wish you good luck with your interview.
Okay, so they wish us good luck.
You all part ways, I mean you all go different ways, leave shortly afterwards.
And it doesn't take long for you to get to the dry cleaners, a gentleman with graying hair greets you warmly as you walk in.
Hi, I'm here to pick up an item you hand him your ticket.
All right, he operates the conveyor.
Yes, I knew it. BEE as it comes round and your garment, your item of clothing comes into view.
Nice clothes going anywhere fancy.
So we've got three options, option one.
I have a big job interview tonight or two.
Now these are just my pajamas.
Or yeah, you could say that.
So yeah, you could say that means yes, that's right.
Going anywhere fancy. Yeah, you could say that, meaning yes, I am going somewhere fancy.
So I have a big job interview tonight or no, these are just my pajamas.
Or yeah, you could say that.
So the guy seems to be fairly friendly.
He's nice. I think I'm going to try and be funny.
And I'm going to say, now these are just my pajamas.
There's obviously a business suit.
That's funny. I'm going to say that.
They're all green, by the way, these things.
So they all should be fairly difficult, but doable.
Now these are just my pajamas.
Unfortunately, a car outside, honks.
Right as you're talking.
Sorry, what did you say?
Now you've completely lost your momentum.
So now suddenly it's much more difficult to say those things.
So they're all yellow now.
I have a big job interview tonight.
Now these are just my pajamas.
Yeah, you could say that.
Suddenly there's a block.
God knows why, but there it is.
Or we've got a fourth option, which is just never mind.
I want to say the joke, but it's the moment has passed.
The moment has definitely passed.
I'm just going to say never mind.
The moment has passed. It's no good.
It's like, hey, nice clothes.
Doing something special.
Now these are just my pajamas.
Timing is everything. Right?
If it's like, nice clothes, what are we going somewhere special?
No, no, beep. What? Sorry, is that what we're saying?
Sorry. Now these are just my pajamas.
Oh, oh, all right. You know, timing is everything.
So I'm just going to say, never mind.
Just give me this suit and let me get out of here.
Never mind. He thanks you energetically.
This is American customer service.
You wouldn't get that in France.
I don't think Paris anyway, at least.
He thanks you energetically.
Well, thank you so much.
Have you have a great day now?
That kind of American thing.
Well, you know, well, thank you so much.
You have, you just have yourself a lovely day now.
He thanks you energetically.
Thank you so much. After handing you your clothes, there you go.
You're all set. But you feel some lingering awkwardness as you leave the buildings.
You just feel like it's fairly unsatisfying.
Just awkward. Anyway, on your way home, you decide to make a stop at a cafe.
You're looking forward to picking up a nice drink to soothe your nerves.
What do you plan on ordering?
Coffee, a tea, hot chocolate or a smoothie?
Well, of course, I'm going to have tea, especially in the afternoon.
So, your heart set on tea.
You set foot inside the busy coffee shop.
After a short wait in the queue, you approach the barista.
Hello, what can I get you?
You quickly and smoothly place your order.
Tea, please. Thank you.
You can pick it up over there when it's ready.
What's your name? Oh, God, this again.
So what are we going to do?
Use your name. Use a friend's name or use a fake name.
Of course, your name. Luke is the most difficult one to say.
A friend's name, slightly easier.
A fake name even easier than that.
Come on. Let's try and do it.
Let's try and say Luke. I'm going to have to say it later.
The job interview might as well get used to it.
I could say a friend's name or a fake name, but it just seems like I don't know.
Seems somehow unsatisfying, right?
Anyway, use your name. God, I knew this would happen.
Why did I choose that to do this?
The barista is staring at you quizzically.
It's, it's, people are starting to line up behind you.
My name is Luke. Oh, moments later, you pick up your cup, adorned with giant block letters, spelling L, U, K, E, and head home.
You spend the remainder of your time practicing and preparing for your interview and make sure to leave extra early.
Good. On the way there, you find yourself drifting off into another memory.
Okay. Here we go. It's going to be another sad memory.
Here we are, then. Okay.
12 years old, 12, right?
12 years old math class or math class.
It's still early in the school year and you're listening to the new math teacher recite answers as your eyes scan your exercise book.
Your brow furrows in surprise as you realize that one of your answers is different from the one he gave.
You raise your hand and he gestures for you to speak.
Remind me what your name is.
It's, um, forget your name.
Your class mates laugh.
You're still struggling to push out the letter L.
When he changes the subject with the wave of the hands, what was your question?
For the solution to number five, would it be okay to use a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a,
a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a and kind of like you've been thrown down on the ground.
I feel objective speaking up was a mistake.
I feel angry. I want my voice to be heard.
I feel confused. What am I supposed to do now?
Well, of course, you'd feel all three of those things.
But I'd certainly feel angry.
What a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a,
what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a,
what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a,
what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a good positive
thing to think, isn't it?
As you walk through the door flashes of the conversations you've had throughout the day, flutter inside your head, so little memories of the conversations you've had during the day, kind of come back to you.
Today was a, really was a mixed bag, a mixed bag, some good, some bad, right?
It was a mixed bag. You try to take it in stride, meaning try to deal with those difficult things, and just carry on in a positive way to take them in your stride.
If you take something in your stride, it means that something bad happens, but you don't let it stop you continuing, you, you maintain your positivity and your drive and your motivation, you just like, okay, something bad happened, but let's carry on.
You take it in your stride, but you end, you try to take it in stride or take it in your stride, but you end up silencing yourself more than you'd like to.
Does that make sense? Silencing yourself, meaning kind of like, I guess talking to yourself as a way of, or like those, those unconfident thoughts come in that kind of suppress yourself, making you shy, making you retire, making you choose to be silent.
You try to shake off all negativity, just get it off, get the negativity off.
He's trying to shake it off as you approach the office.
There's no time for introspection anymore.
So we've got to focus on the job at hand, no time to let these intrusive thoughts from the past come in.
This is it. Okay, let's start the interview.
Here we go. So the interview is conducted by a man who somehow seems equal parts approachable and severe.
So he's equally approachable, so friendly and easy to talk to.
You can approach him quite easily, but also severe, like he's also kind of seems to be a bit strict, which is often the case in job interviews.
They can often be like high ears, very nice to talk to you.
Thank you for coming for the interview today.
So they seem approachable, but also there's this sense that seems a bit strict as well.
You shake his hand, sit down and ready yourself for what's to come.
You know, you're probably going to stutter anyway, and you've been making an effort to be more open about it lately.
You decide to disclose your condition before he starts asking his questions.
Okay, so we're going to tell him at the beginning.
Look, just to let you know, I do have a stutter.
I have a stammer, which sometimes affects the way that I speak.
So if I sometimes pause, it's because of the stammer.
I've had it my whole life.
That's what you say. His reaction is polite, but difficult to read.
So he says, okay, thank you for telling me.
So you'd polite, but it's difficult to read.
You don't know what he really feels, and you hope you made the right choice.
Suddenly you're launched into the interview proper.
He first asks you about your skills.
I have a particular set of skills you want to say.
No, you feel that you're capable of speaking fluently.
Right now, but unfortunately, not with the specific sentences you had in mind, which are full of the most important information you want to convey.
So feel not too bad, but those specific sentences just, no, it's not happening.
So what are we going to do?
Focus on giving the best possible answer or focus on being fluent.
Focus on giving the best possible answer is more difficult.
Focus on being fluent is easier.
I think we're going to have to focus on being fluent here.
Just let the wheels turn.
Let's keep them momentum going, and maybe we'll manage to find our way to the same point we wanted to make, but in other words, I think if I was in this situation, if I was trying to do something in French, I would probably try that instead of smashing my head against a brick wall, which is never a good idea, is it?
Anyway, so you focus on being fluent.
You fluently talk about your skills, managing to avoid every potential block.
In doing so, you also manage to avoid any mention of your most interesting abilities.
Without skipping a beat, so without pausing, he asks you about your goals.
Maybe it's all the tension building up, or maybe it's just a stroke of bad luck, but you find that all your carefully crafted and eloquent sentences have abandoned you despite many rounds of perfectly fluent practice at home.
So all these sentences that you prepared to say in advance, they've all gone.
So he's asking about your goals.
What are your goals? What do you want to achieve?
Right. So what do we do? Focus on giving the best possible answer, which is in red, or focus on being fluent.
This is really tough because you obviously need to sell yourself and you need to tell him about your best skills.
You need to be able to give him your unique selling points.
Right. You can't just keep speaking fluently, but not actually saying anything, particularly interesting or positive about yourself.
But it's in red now. I think we're going to have to try.
I mean, he seemed to understand about the stammer when I said it before.
I'm going to try it. Here we go.
I mean, as soon or later, he's going to discover my stammer.
It's going to come up at some point.
So let's just try. Might as well do it now.
OK. You hit several painful blocks, but eventually managed to outline the goals, which are most aligned with the companies.
As the interview draws to a close, he asks you about your past experiences in the workplace.
Aha. You figured this question was coming and prepared for it.
Well, this is your time to shine.
You take a second to put your thoughts in order.
So you just take a second.
OK. What we're going to say as you focus on the beginning of your first sentence, you feel your throat constrict harder, get tighter, harder than ever.
Oh, Pollux, you're not going to make it.
Maybe you can still try to be fluent.
Maybe it'll be OK. What are we going to do?
Focus on giving the best possible answer or focus on being fluent, but to be honest, they're both in red.
Whatever we say now is going to be difficult.
I've got to just focus on giving the best possible answer.
It's the only thing we can do now.
All you can manage is small.
All you can manage is small, throaty sounds as you try to get over the biggest block of the day.
You try to rephrase things in your head, desperately looking for a way to say what you need to say.
Finally, you form a complete word, then another, then a few.
Slowly. You struggle for what feels like hours as the interviewer stares expressionlessly, only looking away to take notes.
But little by little, you piece together a cohesive response, meaning a response that sort of sticks together.
And share several great learning experiences you've had in other workplaces.
The interview concludes shortly after.
His smile, as he sees you out of the room, is friendly yet distant.
So as he sort of says, OK, thank you for coming and shows you the exit.
His smile is friendly but distant.
And you're left feeling very uncertain about your performance.
You feel a pit in your stomach, like a hole in your stomach.
The whole way home, all the way home, but take some comfort in knowing that you did everything you could.
You go to bed that night wondering if you've let your inner child down.
There's a phrasal verb to let someone down to disappoint them.
In this case, it's your inner child.
Because remember, you wanted to show your past self that they can be proud of you now.
You want to make someone proud.
So you want to succeed. But if you fail, you're going to let that person down.
That person's going to be, that'll be disappointed.
You'll let them down. If you want to, normally it's your parents, right?
Normally you want to prove to your parents that you're capable of doing something.
So you do your best. But then you fail and your parents are like, we're very disappointed.
Oh no, I let them down and let my parents down.
You've let us down again.
In this case, we go to bed wondering if we have let our inner child down.
If we've let down the child version of ourselves, if they're going to be disappointed in us.
Can you really hope to achieve your goals?
Really, can you really hope to achieve your goals even with this speech impediment?
Is there any point in trying?
This is the question we're wondering about.
Here's another memory, 16 years old, your best friend's house.
Slumped into Jamie's parents, comfy couch.
It's meaning sitting, sort of lying back, sitting comfortably.
Slumped into Jamie's parents, comfy couch in a living room, packed with friends and acquaintances.
You're watching a popular comedy film you've never seen before.
We got an attorney in the family.
Great, who? My cousin Vinnie.
So they're watching the film, my cousin Vinnie, really good film.
An hour passes and you're all enjoying yourselves.
The wrongly accused protagonists are now in court.
So my cousin Vinnie is about a court case, like a legal case in a courtroom.
It's funny, it's charming, it's great.
Really good film. An hour passes and you're all enjoying yourselves.
The wrongly accused protagonists are now in court and being represented by a new defense attorney after firing the titular Vinnie.
So basically a lawyer is defending them in the courtroom.
The new attorney, the new lawyer, stands to give his opening statement.
Ladies and gentlemen of the...
Of the... The jury. Come on, on, on.
You instinctively tense and cringe.
As you hear his broken speech, the pauses, the rhythms, the gestures to help him push words out.
You know exactly how he feels.
You've never seen someone who talks like you on TV before and you're transfixed for a moment.
As the initial shock begins to fade, your attention shifts away from the screen and you register your friend's reactions for the first time.
They are laughing hysterically.
It dawns on you, Vinnie, you realise, oh...
It dawns on you to them. There isn't an ounce of drama in the scene, only humour.
You endure or survive the rest of this painfully awkward moment.
Then enjoy the remainder of the movie.
Afterwards, as conversations emerge about what you just watched, you try to come to terms with your conflicted feelings.
It's a good day for you, fluency-wise, which makes you feel emboldened, it makes you feel courageous.
Confident. You're not comfortable opening up too much around everyone present, but you test the waters, sort of like test the situation, dip your toe in the water.
It's an idiom, test the waters.
You test the waters by stating you felt bad for the defence attorney.
You're like, I felt kind of bad for that defence attorney.
He just let his nerves get the best of him.
And someone said, I can understand stuttering when you're nervous, but he was spasming out.
Right. That's pretty incorrect thing to say.
Spasming out is like he was having spasms as a result of maybe some sort of mental disorder.
Right? I mean, why would you become a lawyer if you can't speak?
Said someone. You change the subject and don't dare to bring it up again.
So you just like change the subject and you don't have...
You never risk talking about it again.
You don't have the courage.
You don't dare to bring it up again.
So how do you feel after this day?
On that day, I vowed, I promised to show the world that I can attain almost any career I want.
Or on that day, I started telling myself that maybe I didn't belong in any position where I'd have to speak.
Hmm. What did we say to ourselves on that day?
Did we go, I will show them.
I'll show that I can do any career I want to do, even though I've got this stammer.
I'll show them. Or did we say, you know what?
It's not my place. It's not for me to be in any position where I'll have to speak.
I'll choose something else where I don't have to speak.
That whole world, it's just not available for me.
It's not going to happen.
So I'll just do something maybe where I can just type or I don't know.
Something else. Now, I want to say the first one.
I want to say, I'll show them I can do anything I want.
But realistically, as a 16-year-old, I don't know.
I don't know. I think I, me, myself as a 16-year-old, I think I would probably be more likely to choose the second option, which is more like a case of, so I've got this speech impediment.
I'm just going to choose work that that I can do.
But it seems, it does seem like a defeat, doesn't it?
It seems like giving up.
I don't know because I haven't been in that position.
Maybe there would be something inside me going, so how would this?
I can do what I want. Especially if you feel inside you, that's the kind of thing you would want to do.
There would be this defiant feeling of, no, I'm going to do it.
This is a question of being optimistic or pessimistic, positive or negative.
If I'm going to have to go for the positive option, come on, let's choose the first one.
I vowed to show the world that I can attain almost any career I want.
I can get any career I want.
Let's go for that. OK, a few weeks after the interview, so we're back to present the present day away from the day dream again.
And it's a few weeks after the interview.
So it's official. You didn't get the job.
Questions start swirling around inside your mind.
Questions. Spinning around inside your mind.
Maybe disclosing your stutter was a mistake and only made you look worse in the interviewer's eyes.
It's impossible to know, and that doubt will be bothering you for a while.
You message your friends to let them know what happened.
They're looking out of your window at the bright afternoon sun when you hear the ping of an incoming message.
It's Clementine. Hey, it reads, I'm sorry to hear about your interview.
I'm dealing with some difficult stuff, too, right now.
Want to hang out tonight and talk about it?
OK, so the option is you could really use a friend right now.
So yeah, let's do that. Let's hope that Clementine is willing to listen to us talking about our problems, because it's not just that we didn't get the job interview.
This is a... This seems to be a huge moment in our life, really, where we decided when we were 16 and it was touch and go.
We were thinking, I'm going to resign, either I'm going to resign myself to a half a life or I'm going to prove to everyone that I can do what I want.
And we chose that one, but we again didn't get a job.
And every single day we struggle with this bullshit every day.
Hopefully, Clementine will understand how bad I feel.
And hopefully she'll be willing to listen to me talking about it.
She is one of my best friends.
Or maybe Clementine will just be like, yeah, whatever, let's talk about my problems.
I've got a feeling she's going to do that.
Let's see. A few hours later, you're meeting up with Clementine and finding a nice spot to talk things out.
Right? It's been a while since you've seen each other one on one, and you have a lot to catch up on.
A lot of stuff, you know, that we need to find out about.
She confides in you about troubles with her partner.
That's slight, right? And you nod understandingly.
And she lets out all her worries.
So she's talking about problems with a boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever.
And so what do we do with Nod?
We, we Nod and listen to her, let her talk.
So what do we get? We've got one option, which is to give her the best advice and support you can, which is pretty much the only thing you can do as a friend, right?
If you're friends with Clementine, this is what you have to do.
You just give her the best advice and support you can.
Problem is it's in red. It's printed in red.
It's going to be difficult to do.
But we have to try and do this.
Clementine seems upset.
So you start sharing some advice and comforting words, but predictably, you only get so far before your body starts fighting you.
It takes a lot of struggling and shifting words around and much more time than you'd like to finally get all of your thoughts out.
Noticing that you unconsciously averted your gaze during your struggle.
So we we we we averted our gaze.
Meaning we didn't look at Clementine.
So we looked away. We all right, well, we were struggling to say what we wanted to say.
We broke eye contact with Clementine and looked away, maybe looked down or looked up or somewhere else.
We averted our gaze. Looked somewhere else.
Noticing that you unconsciously averted your gaze during your struggle.
You turn back towards your friend and find an appreciative smile on her face as she takes in your words.
So she appreciates what what we're saying.
She she appreciates it and you say, sorry, I hope that was helpful.
It was honestly, I mostly wanted I mostly just wanted to vent, but you actually gave me a lot to think about.
That's nice. Clementine says I mostly wanted to vent to vent means to.
Basically just get a lot of negativity off your chest.
When you've got like negative bad feelings inside, you need to kind of get them out.
You just vent and that would mean complaining about stuff and just get it all out to vent your frustrations.
Right. So she said I mostly just wanted to vent, but you actually gave me a lot to think about.
Good. So what we want to say is I'm glad I could help.
This is written in yellow.
So this is going to be a bit difficult to say.
I'm glad I could help you smile back.
I'm I'm I'm glad I could help.
She looks pensive for a moment like pensive like she's thinking about something may be worried.
She says, Hey, I hope that's not a rude thing to ask, but what's it like to stutter?
How does it feel? You're taken aback by the question, taken aback like you're sort of surprised.
Like you know, taken aback like literally you might move yourself back a little bit.
Well, this is surprise.
You're taken aback by the question.
You realize that no one has ever asked you how it felt.
You tell her about the physiological symptoms, how your tongue seizes, meaning stops, and your diaphragm constricts.
Your diaphragm is like a muscle under your lungs, which goes down and up as you breathe.
It's really important for breathing.
You have to be supposed to breathe from your diaphragm.
So you tell her about your physiological symptoms.
So that's the physical symptoms, how your tongue seizes, your tongue just won't make the right shape or movement.
And your diaphragm constricts.
It goes tight, meaning you can't breathe properly.
You tell her how tiring it can be to have to actively think about something that most people do effortlessly.
She seems stunned like, like really shocked.
She seems stunned as you name a few of the opportunities you've missed due to being unable or unwilling to talk.
She's like, wow, really?
Most of all, you want her to know that, what, so we've got three options.
What do we want her to know?
We want her to know that you just want to be normal or you just want to be accepted or you just want to be taken seriously.
Well, of course it's all three.
We want to be normal, we want to be accepted, we just want to be taken seriously.
I don't know if I would want to be normal.
I would want people to just accept me for who I am.
Right? I want to be myself, which is someone who has a stammer.
But I want people to accept me for who I am.
I want to be accepted. She listens without interjecting, so without interrupting.
As you get these years old frustrations and sorrows off your chest.
Careful not to monologue for too long.
You wrap up your response and top it off with a sigh of relief.
So you top it off like the cherry on the cake or the top.
You know, the last piece that you put on the top is a sigh of relief.
So you talk and then you end with a sigh of relief.
It's so nice to be able to talk with some.
It's so nice to be able to talk about this with someone I...
I... Another major block.
Her lips are still lightly curled into a patient smile.
So she's still smiling.
A moment passes. I just wish I could feel accepted, you know?
As you resume your back and forth.
You're tripped up by blocks, left and right.
But for once you don't care at all.
You're not ashamed, embarrassed or stressed.
You can take as long as you need.
You end the night feeling grateful to have such a good friend.
And thinking to yourself that may be being accepted isn't such an impossible dream after all.
We've got another thing to click here about being accepted isn't such an impossible dream after all.
Click that. And we did it.
Achievement unlocked on the fence, equal parts overt and covert.
So overt and covert. I guess that's relating to...
If you're overt means you're doing things obviously letting people see your struggle and covert you're managing to find ways to hide your struggle.
And I got equal parts. I got it equally.
I was kind of on the fence in that sense.
So the end here, we finished the game.
It's really nice to have been to have a feeling of acceptance from a friend on a one-to-one basis like that.
That was a big step in the right direction.
So the game ends like this.
Thank you for playing disfluent.
Here are the achievements you unlocked during this playthrough.
So on the fence we were equal parts overt and covert.
Hold the line. So we got hung up on, hung up on, we got hung up on on the telephone, satisfied, eat a delicious meal.
So we got the meal was good.
Getting a hung up on wasn't so good, even though luckily we managed to get the game at the end.
If you'd like to try doing another playthrough, be sure to check out the extras on the title screen.
You'll find options to disable text animations and display your covertness stat statistic as well as a list of all the achievements.
So there you go. So it seems that I can go back to the title screen and check out the extras.
Okay, that's where I can, as it said, disable text animations.
So there are moments in the story where the letters were actually moving around to represent the how difficult it was to say them.
And I got my different statistics as well.
So there you go, everybody.
That was disfluent. And I'm sure there are lots of other things that can happen in that game, depending on the choices that you make.
Those are the choices I made, but you could play that game and choose different choices.
And I recommend that you do that because you're going to no doubt, come across a lot of the language that we just went through.
It would be a good idea to discover it again yourself in your own time and read it.
And also, I just think it's actually a very, very effective bit of interactive fiction because Alison Gray has done a great job there of letting us know what it's like, what it feels like to be disfluent or to have a speech impediment or to have a stammer or a stutter.
And you can see how it would affect you and affect your life.
Great. Really enjoyed that.
Hello, everyone. I'm just interrupting here at the end because I wanted to add a couple of comments that I got from the author of this story, Alison Gray.
I was in contact with her about this episode and this story.
And she just added some things that I thought would be interesting to add at the end here.
So this is what Alison wrote to me.
She said a few notes about the stories development in case it could be of interest to you or your viewers.
First of all, most of the events described are based on things that happened to me when I was younger and the rest are inspired by anecdotes from other people who stutter.
I'm doing great nowadays, but back then I really struggled with my condition.
So that's interesting.
The whole game is actually based on real events and real experiences.
She continued, the plot went through several changes as I wrote and rewrote.
Originally, the central conflict was going to be the challenge of trusting professional help again.
After a bad childhood experience with a therapist, but I ended up shifting my focus to the double edged sword of covertness and overtness.
If the current version comes across as anti therapy in any way, that wasn't my intention and I'll consider making adjustments in the next update.
So that refers to, I guess, that scene, that daydream where the main character remembers the experience.
I think it was as an eight-year-old going to a therapist and the parents had obviously taken her to a therapist to try and work out what's going on.
And the therapist didn't really understand the issue and decided that the stutter was a result of some other kind of psychological issue and kind of got it all wrong and it was really the other way around that the stama or stutter is actually a neurological thing as I mentioned at the beginning.
It's really a question of like connections in the brain that aren't properly linked, which causes this inability to make certain sounds and stress and nervousness and irritation, those all make it worse, which is why those situations where the character felt uptight or stressed that suddenly made speaking so much more difficult, but it's primarily a neurological
problem. So the therapist didn't really understand that and as a result it was very unsatisfying and also probably quite traumatic and disturbing and upsetting for this eight-year-old to not really understand what the problem is, what's going on, is it my fault, how disappointed are my parents?
You can imagine it would result in a lot of problematic feelings and thoughts.
And Alison also wrote this.
She said, English is actually my second language as I grew up speaking exclusively French.
I'm pretty proud of all the progress I've made and so happy to have fulfilled my dream of becoming an author.
I wish your viewers the same success in their journeys and it warms my heart to see people like you who spread the love of language.
So that is inspiring isn't it everyone that the author of this is a non-native speaker or at least someone who has English as a second language, which is very impressive that she's managed to write such a well-written, evocative story like this.
So thanks to Alison for her comments.
There you go. Listeners, video viewers, I hope you enjoyed that too and that you picked up some bits of English in the process.
As I said, go back through the game, read it yourself.
You'll find a link in the description for it.
You can do it yourself and you could copy paste words and phrases and stuff like that.
If you wanted to, otherwise just read through it again in your own time would be a good idea.
That's the end of this episode.
Thank you so much for listening.
Thank you for taking the time all the way through to the end here.
Leave your comments in the comments section.
How did you get on during that?
How did it make you feel?
I got a bit emotional, actually, at one point, in the therapist's office was actually quite moving.
How it must have felt to be misunderstood and see the disappointment in your parents' eyes.
That's hard. That's tough.
By the way, if you are someone who suffers from this condition, then it's been fascinating to find out what that's like.
You could leave your comments.
I'd love to know what it's like for you and if you've got anything to add.
Just good luck to you, basically.
I don't know what can you do.
I suppose that there are places you can go.
The British Stammering Association might be a good place to go.
Actually, website, stammering.org.
The British Stammering Association.
It says we make space for stammering.
Let's see if we can find out more.
It's the largest UK charity and membership organisation representing people who stammer.
You could check it out. You might be able to read more and find out more.
It looks like they're doing lots of different work campaigns, maybe some different events.
You can become a member.
That would be good to become part of a community.
You might meet other people who have a similar experience to you.
You could learn more about stammering and how to deal with it and how to deal with the annoying stuff that comes along with it.
Not just annoying. A lot of the debilitating, frustrating things that come along with it.
That's the end of the episode, though.
Have a lovely evening, afternoon, morning, night, daytime, night time, lunch, lunch, dinner, breakfast, second breakfast, cup of coffee or tea, or pint of low alcohol, or whatever it is that you're doing.
Thank you for staying with me for this episode.
I'll speak to you next time, but for now, it's time to say goodbye.
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