Help me, uh, help me fix my, uh, my stutter.

September 7, 2009 12:20 AM

I have a horrible stutter which just came to my attention about a week ago. Not only is "uh" my favorite word but I repeat myself a lot. Help me, oh hivemind, to learn how to fix this problem. Written and audio examples inside.

First I will provide a written example.

"Hello, my name is... uh... my name is Pseudology"

Now I will provide an audio example. A word of caution, it only seems to work for me if I just click on the link and refuses to open in a new tab.

The event which brought the stutter to my attention was an interview I did over the radio. While I was a little nervous in the beginning, showing that the problem does get worse when I'm nervous, I was totally confident at the end where the problem was almost just as bad. I feel I made my points but the delivery was terrible. Since this is the only recorded conversation I have of myself let alone the only recorded conversation I have of myself online and ready to link so I could bask in my 15 minutes of fame through facebook, I've decided to use it as my audio example. It's seven minutes long so don't feel the need to listen to all of it (I'm Brock just so you don't get me confused with the other two people but I'm sure I could just say I'm the guy with the stutter).

After this I noticed I stuttered quite often and when asked if my stutter was is as bad as it was in the interview my friends all said yes. They also said it made me difficult to listen to at times.

I don't know anything about speech therapy because I've always seen it as something for people who get nervous when they speak publically. Being the attention whore that I am I've never had a big problem with nervousness in public speaking. As a result I know nothing about how/why I or others stutter let alone how to fix it which is why I'm asking mefi.

posted by Pseudology to Health & Fitness (16 answers total)

Toastmasters.

If you can find the right group, that is, one focused more on improving people than winning competitions, it'll do wonders for your verbal tics.
Especially since you say you have no problem with nervousness, it'll help you concentrate immediately on fixing the mechanics of your speech.
posted by madajb at 12:27 AM on September 7, 2009

You really don't sound that bad. Most people I interview sound like you or worse, especially if they're not seasoned media performers. Usually I try to pre-record them so I can edit out the worst of their ums and ahs, and they end up sounding just fine.

But if you want to improve, I'd suggest: Speak more slowly. Pause and breath before you respond. Remember to keep breathing while you're speaking. It sounds like your mouth is going ever so slightly faster than your brain, and you're getting to the end of a phrase before you've worked out what you're going to say next. Don't be afraid to allow a few moments of silence while you collect your thoughts.

Toastmasters can help with all of this, but so can a voice trainer or acting coach. Incidentally, I wouldn't call this a stutter at all, it's just a habit of speech that you'd rather not have. It's easily fixable, so don't sweat it.
posted by embrangled at 12:46 AM on September 7, 2009 [1 favorite]

I've got to be honest with you, I'm not sure I'm hearing it. You seem to speak rather eloquently and stutter-free. It's definitely not a "stutter" as much as a speech disfluency.

If you want to feel better, watch President Obama give a non-teleprompted speech. He uses "uhhhh" a LOT when speaking off the cuff, mostly because pausing to form your phrasing isn't a terrible deficiency.

I tend to take the opposite tack and just talk REALLY FAST. I have to consciously remind myself to slow down. These things happen, but you're not nearly as bad as you think you are.
posted by disillusioned at 1:06 AM on September 7, 2009 [1 favorite]

I wouldn't call it a stutter either. I've never had a stutter myself, by my close friend in grade school did. When he would trip over something, it was a prolonged repetition where he was incapable of moving on.

You seem to just "restate" the preceding phrase after your filler, as if reminding listeners (yourself?) where you were in the sentence before you paused. I think the restatement will naturally go away when you learn to control your verbal fillers.

Many, many people have this problem to various degrees. President Obama does it. I have a friend who has a masters in speech communications and her speech is peppered with "likes" (drives me nuts).

Personally, I think you hear politicians with it less because they all have a standard line they just can't wait to pitch. And since they've practiced this line over and over, there's no need for a verbal filler while they puzzle out the phrasing of what to say next. As disillusioned points out, you only hear President Obama do it when he's off the rehearsed lines.

Anyway, I expect any basic public speaking course would get you passed this. The problem you've got is really pretty minor IMHO.
posted by sbutler at 2:20 AM on September 7, 2009

Very few people like the sound of their own voice, especially when they hear it on public airways. I'd say that's more what you're experiencing than any sort of speech impediment or stutter. The interview sounds fine to me.
posted by ndicecco at 5:10 AM on September 7, 2009

After an evaluator said he stopped counting at my 60th "okay" in a 45 minute lecture I became painfully aware of it and rarely say it all, m'kay. Videotaping my talks every now and then has been a big help.
posted by furtive at 5:44 AM on September 7, 2009

I have a stutter. It means I literally cannot make a given sound, and it can take 10-20 seconds of concerted effort just to speak a certain word, during which time I sound like a cat being strangled. (Luckily I can usually "talk around it" most of the time, avoiding problematic words like landmines.)

You don't stutter. Be grateful. It's just bad public speaking, which is no big deal, but which would improve with practice, etc. I'm sure.
posted by zachawry at 6:30 AM on September 7, 2009 [1 favorite]

The advice here is all good. It's never a bad idea to improve your public speaking, even if it's just for one-on-one conversation. But I think ndicecco nails it appropriately. If you are not used to hearing yourself speak, it's terribly unnerving and depressing. Those resonant tones in your voice that you hear though your jawbone are gone. Those uhhs and ahhhs that you remembered as thoughtful pauses now seem to be glaring signs of your own inadequacy with language. But other people rarely notice these things.

As others have mentioned, look people whose careers depend on public speaking, and you'll see that many, if not most of them, are actually pretty terrible at it, if you want to get picky.

So, if it's important to you, sure, take some classes, join a group, or even read up on it and practice by recording and listening to yourself. But in the meantime, don't get self-conscious, because that makes things worse. Deliberate and self-aware are good traits for speaking. Stiff and self-conscious are not. Good luck!
posted by The Deej at 6:38 AM on September 7, 2009 [1 favorite]

Were you standing up while talking? For some reason this really helps me. I seem to breath better and I can also wave my arms around which really helps.
posted by srboisvert at 7:56 AM on September 7, 2009

Response by poster: I've got to be honest with you, I'm not sure I'm hearing it. You seem to speak rather eloquently and stutter-free. It's definitely not a "stutter" as much as a speech disfluency.

posted by disillusioned at 1:06 AM on September 7 [mark as best answer] [1 favorite -] [!]

You don't stutter. Be grateful. It's just bad public speaking, which is no big deal, but which would improve with practice, etc. I'm sure.
posted by zachawry at 6:30 AM on September 7 [mark as best answer] [+] [!]

After reviewing the actual definition of a stutter I do agree I don't have one for which, yes, I am very grateful I do not have.

If you want to feel better, watch President Obama give a non-teleprompted speech. He uses "uhhhh" a LOT when speaking off the cuff, mostly because pausing to form your phrasing isn't a terrible deficiency.

posted by disillusioned at 1:06 AM on September 7 [mark as best answer] [1 favorite -] [!]

You mean like this?
posted by Pseudology at 8:40 AM on September 7, 2009

You don't have a stutter. You say "uh" occasionally. If you notice, Bill O'Reilly (I think that's who is interviewing you?) says "uh" once when introducing you and the other guest.
posted by dfriedman at 8:44 AM on September 7, 2009

The Toastmasters group I first joined (Ala Moana Toastmers group in Honolulu) had a little bicycle horn that blasted off when experienced Toastmasters made an "uh" or related sound in their speaking. Very effective. (We didn't do it for the new comers.)

Something I do when I want to reduce a behavior is to make a pen-mark on the palm side of the middle finger of my left hand, crossing the finger. (Four hash marks and a diagonal make 5, etc.) If you're trying to reduce the "uh" sound, you may want to give that a try as well. Works for swearing, grammatical problems, slouching, etc.

Write down the total number of times you engaged in the undesired behavior -- it should decrease fairly quickly as you make yourself continuously aware of it.

Good luck!

Yours,

Kalepa
posted by Kalepa at 9:03 AM on September 7, 2009

A few years ago I taped recorded myself reading some poems. I have done a lot of performance poetry. I did not like what I heard on that tape. When I told my poetry study group what I had done, they unanimously shouted me down:

Do not ever do that!

While I disagree with that, I do think that listening to tapes of your own voice is not the greatest diagnostic. What I am doing to improve my speech right now is three things: devote my full attention when I am speaking to a person, reading aloud Leaves of Grass and the King Jams translation of the Psalms.

Yesterday on NPR they had a report from the tech show in Germany. The reporter had not only that final uptick thingie, she had random upticks, random down ticks, random sideways where the hell is she going ticks. She sounded like a complete blithering fool. She is a paid communicator! That you are actually exerting some energy on your presentation is something I am very glad to hear. I wish many more people would do so.
posted by bukvich at 9:31 AM on September 7, 2009

I have taught public speaking before (at the college level) and I was a professional broadcaster for several years. I have also listened to (and transcribed) A LOT of speech in my graduate studies. You sound fine. You do not stutter. You tend to say "uh" when you pause. Most people have some verbal tick or another that they insert while their brains and mouths are trying to catch up (mine is "you know"). Seriously, in the course of my career I have heard MUCH, MUCH worse.

I agree with the other posters that much of your discomfort may stem from not being used to the sound of your own voice. If you want to cut down on the "uhs", becoming more comfortable with your voice is the first step. I think learning to listen to yourself while you are speaking really helps you anticipate the verbal ticks, and helps you train yourself to just pause.

My trick for learning to listen to yourself, from when I taught public speaking: Make an arrangement with a trusted friend--every time you have a conversation or are in another speaking event, have the friend stop you the first time you say "uh." When you are stopped, you have to go back to the beginning and start over. Repeat as necessary. I found in classes when we did this exercise it usually took 2 or 3 stops and then the speaker's verbal ticks tended to just vanish, because it forced them to slow down and pay attention to their own voices.
posted by DiscourseMarker at 10:15 AM on September 7, 2009

every time you feel the need to say "uhhhh" or "ummmm", just stop talking. Just pause and say nothing... it sounds a LOT better than all that "uhhhh" and "ummmm" stuff.

True, but I find that now that I have a fair amount of pauses in my speech, people take advantage of that to interrupt and I rarely get to make my point coherently unless I front load it in my sentence, sound-bite style.
posted by ctmf at 12:07 PM on September 7, 2009 [1 favorite]

@ctmf in linguistic studies they call who gets to speak ownership of "the floor" some people/cultures have a lower tolerance for pauses- ie they jump in and take the floor a lot quicker than other people/cultures. It also differs with personality and gender.

In a western-y sort of culture, longer pauses are more excepted. In others, not so much. (you also get things like "supportive interruption" etc. not bad, just different.)

These verbal ticks are perhaps a subconscious effort to help us hold onto the floor, as well as the "brain catching up to mouth" thing.
posted by titanium_geek at 8:13 PM on September 7, 2009 [1 favorite]