Realistic Stuttering: “Sorry, I uh… I didn’t mean- I didn’t mean to do that…”
When people stutter, they usually reword what they’re saying as they speak, and subconsciously insert “filler words” such as “uh, like, you know,” and etc.
*puts on speech therapist hat*
ACTUALLY! It depends on why they are stuttering.
A Nervous Stutter results in what is called Mazing, or rewording the sentence. That is the classic “I, um… well I… look it’s just that… so we…” that @hellishhues is talking about. When someone is mazing their words you’re seeing a form of Speech Apraxia where the brain is having trouble forming verbal speech. This can be brought on by brain damage, memory loss, anxiety, nerves, and several other things.
The root cause of a nervous stutter is a disconnect between the mouth and the brain.
With this you will also sometimes see the classic “S-s-s-sorry…” especially if the person has been training to speak clearly and is now at a point of fatigue or stress where they are not mentally capable of forming the words.
The other kind of stutter is a Physical Stutter, sometimes referred to as slurring, and another facet of Speech Apraxia. This stutter is caused when the muscles of the mouth, tongue, and throat are physically unable to form certain sounds. This is most often seen in the very young and victims of brain trauma.
Sounds are acquired at different ages, so a 2-year-old will probably not be able to clearly pronounce certain words (which is why toddler sound so off when they’re written with developed dialogue). These mis-pronunciations are sometimes referred to as lisping, but only if the sounds are run together. If the person starts and restarts the sound because they got it wrong, it can also sound like the classic sound stutter.
But it all depends on why the character is stuttering!
Do they have Speech Apraxia, Audio Processing Disorder, muscle dysfunction, or another medical reason to stutter? (1)
Are they stuttering because of anxiety, stress, or fatigue? (2)
Does the stutter stem from intoxication or blood loss? (3)
All of those will sound different!
1 - Will have mazing, repeated sound stutters, and be the classic stutter that annoys OP.
2 - This is where you’ll see the repetition stutter, mazing, rephrasing, and filler words.
3 - This is where you are more likely to see starts and stops and slurring of words.
My mum has apraxia and I just wanted to say that’s one of the most concise and clear ways I’ve seen it explained, thank you!
^^^
I myself repeat letters when I’m stressed, so my characters do too, but I didn’t know before about the different causes for stuttering. I will refer to this in future. Thank you.
Nothing brings me more joy than people learning from history and then modernizing it up a bit.
Like you wanna grow your hair long? Stop washing it so often and brush it more to keep it clean. Your hair will be way healthier too. And stop cutting it (and use a boar bristle brush, it’ll work better as it’ll actually absorb the oils, distribute them better, and work a hell of a lot better than non-absorbent plastic would) Edit: Early on, some well meaning person kindly asked me to inform you that the boar bristle brush technique does not work on curly hair, however I have since been informed by multiple parties that it does! My hair is as straight as a pin so use your own judgment!
You want to keep cool in the summer? Out with the polyester and in with the linen and cotton. Natural fibers are going to keep you cooler because they’re literally made to breathe
You want to preemptively stop the underwire in your bra from poking through? There’s a very simple embroidery stitch you can do that the Edwardians used to do to stop their corset boning from coming through.
We don’t have to just learn from our ancestors mistakes, we can learn from their stakes too
make yourself an office/work area at home and try to make it as inviting as possible!! bring your favourite candle, cute stationery, or put your own study playlist/soundtrack on speakers. especially in a situation like this it’s very important to have a space that makes you feel calm and ready to be as productive as possible!!
set aside specific times for work, and try to re-create having a specific time table like you would at school/work/uni. whether that means setting out certain tasks or going through the assigned day’s work one by one, structure is really important!
minimizing distractions is crucial, especially at home put your phone in another room, use a special app to lock your phone for a set amount of time, disconnect your laptop from the internet or block certain sites you tend to use when procrastinating.
reward yourself!! you have to keep that motivation going, so don’t forget to take breaks and reward yourself, for example with sweets or your favourite netflix series at the end of the day.
