(2025)
(this is all you ever do on this site) are you worried that it's now (out of date) given that it's now February? Was there something in your pancakes?
'My Words Are Like an Uncontrollable Dog': On Life with Nonfluent Aphasia (2025)
11–20 of 26 posts
Re: 'My Words Are Like an Uncontrollable Dog': On Life with Nonfluent Aphasia (2025)
#12A note to writers, when a stroke or other brain injury victim relearns speech the worst comparison you can make is "speaking french" or "like Steffi Graf" because it's not an acquired foreign accent syndrome, it's a brain injury. It's a speech impairment. They're relearning how to form words. Just because one culture forms a rhotic R one way and another culture forms it another way or even deprecates it doesn't make…
Well I'd need to see an actual example of the French thing. But I think a comparison to a thick accent would often work. When I speak Spanish my accent involves enough consistent clumsy wrongness that you could probably compare it to a speech impediment in a native Spanish speaker.
Re: 'My Words Are Like an Uncontrollable Dog': On Life with Nonfluent Aphasia (2025)
#13Re: 'My Words Are Like an Uncontrollable Dog': On Life with Nonfluent Aphasia (2025)
#14A note to writers, when a stroke or other brain injury victim relearns speech the worst comparison you can make is "speaking french" or "like Steffi Graf" because it's not an acquired foreign accent syndrome, it's a brain injury. It's a speech impairment. They're relearning how to form words. Just because one culture forms a rhotic R one way and another culture forms it another way or even deprecates it doesn't make…
A more favorable look is that the impeded person sounds like someone who has to learn the language as a non-native. If you've read the bit about her learning to walk consciously, it's not an odd comparison. Everything has to be done from the "wrong" starting point.
She calls it "her German," BTW.
PS I should add there are quite a few different types of aphasia. The case in the article seems uncommon.
Re: 'My Words Are Like an Uncontrollable Dog': On Life with Nonfluent Aphasia (2025)
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
(this is all you ever do on this site) are you worried that it's now (out of date) given that it's now February? Was there something in your pancakes?
They are just being helpful
What's the help? Is having a stroke in Feb 2026 different from in 2025?
Re: 'My Words Are Like an Uncontrollable Dog': On Life with Nonfluent Aphasia (2025)
#16There is something similar that I experienced by learning a second language through exposure and not doing much precision based practice. Having words that you can understand when you hear but can’t use yourself is one thing, but when you start speaking words (that are actually correct to what you want to say) that you don’t understand when hearing yourself it’s quite disorientating.
The movie Bedazzled with Brendan Fraser has a scene where he wishes he was rich and powerful and wakes up as a Colombian drug lord.
When his butler asks him a question he says “Pardon, no hablo espanol. Uno momento! Mucho hablo espanol!”
It’s similar to that. You surprise yourself all the time.
Re: 'My Words Are Like an Uncontrollable Dog': On Life with Nonfluent Aphasia (2025)
#17I had a weird experience with thankfully very temporary aphasia 20 years ago, which I wrote a bit about here: https://dmd.3e.org/2005-11-23-aphasia-and-back-sunday-20-nov...
wow, thank you for sharing that, fascinating read! glad you (presumably) recovered well from that episode, sounds quite scary!
Re: 'My Words Are Like an Uncontrollable Dog': On Life with Nonfluent Aphasia (2025)
#18I witnessed somebody go through a temporary form of this after brain surgery. They could converse relatively normally except were completely unable to make decisions.
They would talk about the bird songs from outside but being asked if they wanted a coffee would freeze. Thankfully they made a full recovery after a few months.
Re: 'My Words Are Like an Uncontrollable Dog': On Life with Nonfluent Aphasia (2025)
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are just being helpful
What's the help? Is having a stroke in Feb 2026 different from in 2025?
They're helping implement the policy. If you think the rules don't make sense, argue for changing them, don't criticize the people following them.
FWIW I think having (2025) for something 1 month ago in January, but nothing 11 months ago in December, doesn't really make much sense. I'd change it to add a year only for things at least a year old. But I barely think it's worth writing this paragraph about in a post I'm already writing for another reason. Definitely not worth giving someone else grief about.
Re: 'My Words Are Like an Uncontrollable Dog': On Life with Nonfluent Aphasia (2025)
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the help? Is having a stroke in Feb 2026 different from in 2025?
They're helping implement the policy. If you think the rules don't make sense, argue for changing them, don't criticize the people following them. FWIW I think having (2025) for something 1 month ago in January, but nothing 11 months ago in December, doesn't really make much sense. I'd change it to add a year only for things at least a year old. But I barely think it's worth writing this paragraph about in a post I'm…
You can't appeal the rules because there's no governance process for it.
Unless dang or whatever makes a separate "Debate" section or similar. Ironically, a debate thread about the rules would violate the rules themselves. Well, unless you make it a rage blog post first...