“What’s that word again?”

[Anonymous]

This is yet something else that I came up with when I was a child. When I was telling a story and closed in on a word that I thought I was going to stutter on, I pretended as if I forgot what it was.

For example, “Hey I was watching that new movie with Uhm… what’s that guy’s name that acted in Mission Impossible and was married to Katie Holmes?” The other person will probably get the name if you make it extremely obvious (it is almost like a game of 30 seconds lol). I have avoided so many stutters with this. And as soon as the other person has said the feared word for me, I can either repeat it in a different voice register or I can just say “yes!” and continue with the rest of my story not concentrating on words, but rather on my idea.

This works really well when you have to say a word that is something that you absolutely cannot change. I mean granted, I could have said “that crazy guy who jumped on Oprah’s couch”, but some people might have been offended! Lol

What is your take on this?

[Javier]

Very true, Tasneem! I’ve used that trick quite a lot! If we fear that we might have problems saying a certain word, what we have to do is avoid saying it. If there is no choice, well, Lee Lovett shows us several ways to do it without stuttering (Crutches)

[Adam Werth]

How do we know in time what words we will stutter on before we are able to avoid that word????

Yes….playing 30 questions and telling stories about a impending stuttered word are great ways to beat around the bush!!!! But it’s better to get right to the point and be direct!!!

[Javier]

The idea is to avoid stuttering, and this is a way of doing it. We shouldn’t feel bad for doing it. We avoided a bad incident, appearing speech disabled. that’s a success. Most likely, in the past we would have stuttered on that word, but not now.. Of course, the more we master the Crutches, the better we get at using them, the more direct we will become.

[Author]

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