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Volume CXXXII, Number 10 |
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Tangled, twisted, and tongue-tied
ACADIA SENESE
COLUMNIST
Sometimes I wonder if English really is my first language. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't "wix" up my "mords" and stutter some totally incomprehensible, gibberish sentence. It's embarrassing as all heck, and I swear my tongue trips over itself like a clumsy adolescent. In an attempt to speak-yes, you'd think after 20 years of practice I could enunciate-my tongue stumbles over itself, leaving me speechless, sounding like a two-year-old, or struggles to say, "Let me try that again." And to think that I'm supposed to graduate this spring.
There are specific times that I butcher the English language to the point of baby jargon. And these points are always at the most inopportune moments. As if my tongue has some vengeance out for me, it fails when I need it most. The following are prime gibberish moments:
1) When I get flustered I cannot speak. I leave out verbs, I don't have subjects, and as far as the object, well that's usually lost in some jumbled maize of unrelated vowels and consonants. It doesn't take much to get me flustered, and for this reason, I trip over my words quite frequently. Class is a very good example. I'll have an eloquent answer all planned out in my head, my professor will call on me, and I'll respond in an alien language. Maybe I speak Martian and only I can understand me. At least that's what I'd like to think when all of my classmates stare at me in utter dismay and wonder: "Bowdoin? You? How on earth…?"
2) I can never talk when someone initiates a conversation with me. Am I scared, caught off guard, or just a conversation delinquent? I think it's the latter. They say: "What's up?" I say: "Good, how are you?" My tongue rattles off some response before my brain has even registered the question. I'm also good at the following. They say: "How are you?" I say: "Nothing." Or they say: "Hi" and I say: "Good, thanks." Great Acadia, just great.
3) When I'm trying to impress someone I cannot speak. This person could be an attractive acquaintance, it could be a professor, it could even be an employer, but it's inevitable that after I spew out some completely messed up sentence that they'll have a look of disgust, confusion, and pity for me. I swear I can talk, really, I can. Just not in front of you at this moment.
4) When I'm in a heated argument, I get going, I'm making my point, and then I try and make my final point, and all that comes out is mush. Mush is not good when you're capping off an argument. "And so there! My point stands because, tou pannot refeat my yarguments." That is mush. And I'm very good at mush. Mush does not equal rhetorical prowess.
5) Or how about the stammer? I'm queen of the stammer. This happens most often when I initiate a conversation, or when I spontaneously ask a question. It's all perfectly clear in my mind, until my tongue starts doing somersaults, and I start off a conversation by saying: "Hey, plow d-doing you?" That's embarrassing, really embarrassing. And a sure-fire way to end a conversation.
I'm coming to grips with the fact that my tongue hates me. I keep practicing, and I keep trying to be clear and coherent-but put me on the spot, get me a little frustrated or flustered, put me in a situation where impressions are everything, and my tongue becomes a high-wire acrobat. Except I don't do a very good job balancing on that wire, and inevitably I go stumbling-tangled, twisted, and tongue-tied-to the pits of the conversation.
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