#rhotacism

like not even just in how people treat you the woobification of speech impediments (the way people use uwu speak as like a teehee funny thing its so adorable when people cant say "l"s and "r"s) people saying your voice sounds "cute" or assuming your speech problems imply developmental/intellectual disabilities

god forbid you do also have developmental or intellectual disabilities because then youre much more likely to have difficulties finding ways to express yourself around legitimate articulation difficulties

and if your speech impediment isnt the result of a developmental or intellectual disability the way people will instantly assume your actual mouth is lazy and slow

but even from the perspective of being in speech therapy in your teens and adults every single resource app flashcard or speech activities given to us all the way until 12th grade were geared towards actual children

i was talking to fucking talking tom less than a week away from graduation and reading from bright colorful flashcards with cartoon pictures in them

and the best representation non stutterers have in media are literal cartoon animals like looney toons or mickey mouse and friends

best case scenario is that randos on the street assume its an accent i definitely think aside from the autism part of why i overexplain everything and am very hyperverbal is also to compensate for my speech issues

the way that so much of participation in society hinges on peoples ability to clearly articulate themselves

the way your arguments are so often discounted and thrown aside if you cant perfectly articulate it

people genuinely take you less seriously if you have difficulty speaking

the implication that the way you speak naturally fundamentally needs to be trained out of you because its wrong and broken

and a lot of speech impediments are literally due to congenital mouth shape/nasal differences deafness or being hoh and are literally uncontrollable but will still be forced into taking years of speech therapy anyway or are the result of difficulties with esl and speech impediments are frequently given pretty insulting names

aside from the obvious ones like tongue tie or lazy tongue theyre often words that are specifically difficult for the person with the speech impediment to pronounce

even "stutter" is often difficult for people with stutters bc of the st sound the multiple t sounds close together followed closely by the er

rhotacism is the inability to say /r/ sounds and it LITERALLY starts with a hard /r/ sound

lisps often describe difficulties with /l/s and /s/s

slurred speech is difficulties with /s/s /l/s and /r/s and the r sound in slur is LITERALLY and /er/ sound one of the more difficult ones for people with speech impediments to pronounce

lambdacism is difficulty saying /l/ and it LITERALLY starts with an /l/

the way speech therapy is designed feels structurally cruel to the people it seeks to help and yet every speech pathologist ive ever met acts like theyre doing these poor dumb disabled kids a huge service and doing the lords work

the way in which i immediately dont trust anyone who says they want to go into speech pathology to not be condescending and ableist af

I've recently noticed a quirk in pronunciation in my, and some others in my area, speech (the area being east Texas and Oklahoma, as well as Arkansas) but I can’t for the life of me find what it's called. Basically, when there's a syllable that has a consonant, an "r," and a vowel (in that order), the syllable will rearrange itself so that the r is at the end. Some examples:

Professor -> Perfessor

Microwave -> Mikerwave

Library -> Libery (I have also heard Libary, but most people avoid that one so as not to sound too rednecky)

Present -> Perzent

Another observation I made about this phenomenon is that it only happens in unstressed syllables. Stressed syllables keep their original structure. For example: if I'm giving someone a present, that first syllable stays "pre." If I'm presenting a powerpoint, however, I'll generally end up "perzenting" it.

Happy Disability Pride Month!

and then i watched scissor seven, first in cn dub and later on i watched clips in english dub and it surprises me how much i enjoy it. not gonna lie the english dub of scissor seven is kinda ass. i think even most fans of the show would agree with me on that. the translation sometimes feels off and the tones arent quite right.

but seven can't roll his Rs. at first i thought this is a thing from the original cn dub, where he speaks mandarin or cantonese based on whether he currently remembers his past. the english dub sorta did a similar thing, where amnesiac seven would slur his words, lenghten vowels, sounds more laidback and such compared to the much more serious, strict, and succint killer seven. i thought his rhotacism would be a part of that. just another thing to show how seven is weaker after losing his memories.

its not though, seven still doesn't roll his Rs as killer seven. his Rs still slides weirdly in his mouth, blending into other consonants or was promptly cut off before it started. he's truly like me. he cant roll his Rs. his words are weird like me. i like it. thats the one thing this dub cant take away from me.

[PT: I can't say "Rs" and there is nothing wrong with how I speak. /End PT].

That isn't to say that I never experience communication issues due to rhotacism (I do, frequently -- oftentimes, I'll spell out the word or rephrase) or that other people with rhotacism (or any other speech difference) don't view their speech as wrong and want to fix it (nor is that wrong). This is, simply, because a person's speech is under the control of the person. If a person wants to work on not stuttering, for example, that's fine. It's their speech. If a person wants to start pronouncing their Rs as Ws or Ls that's also fine, as long as its not in a mocking manner. I've never seen anyone do that, to be fair, but we can imagine a cooler world together. Autonomy regarding one's speech, and largely every aspect of themselves, is important and (should be) unalienable.

When I was in elementary school, it was noted that I still wasn't pronouncing Rs "correctly," whereas the vast majority of my peers who had similarly "failed" to pronounce Rs had learned and worked past that difference. I was put into speech therapy at my school, in order to "correct" this difference.

When you're a kid, oftentimes you sort of just go along with everything. You are taught that what you want doesn't matter. Adults know better. Older folk know better. You will be punished if you don't listen. Not obeying is silly, immature, and stupid. If you disagree, it's because you're too young to understand. The concept is so normalized that it isn't even questioned.

So, I just sort of went along with it. I was being told my speech was wrong by multiple adults, and they told me if I do all of this it'll be fixed. Why question that? When has questioning ever helped me? When has questioning ever resulted in a changed outcome? They wanted me to speak differently. It was a foregone conclusion.

By middle school, however, while my speech certainly was "better," it wasn't "perfect." I still had rhotacism. I still spoke "wrong." It was a bit unusual, but not uncommon, that I hadn't fixed it by middle school. Most people in speech therapy graduate before then. Maybe I didn't put in the effort I needed to? Maybe I wasn't understanding why it was important? Regardless, I guess I was going to have to continue into middle school, even though I was told previously I wouldn't. It upset me, but then again, when did my emotions ever come into play? I am a passive receiver of care. I may as well be a doll.

By 7th grade, I grew frustrated. Being pulled out of my favorite class once a week to go shove some mouthwash-covered plastic that had been in other people's mouths into my mouth in order to do tongue and speech exercises that I've done forever on top of having things explained to me that I could recite in my sleep was annoying, to say the least. I stopped putting in effort. I grew visibly annoyed and defiant. My speech-language pathologist was confused. Don't you want to fix your issue? You used to like this (I didn't. I just have spent my whole life faking every aspect of myself). You're disrespecting me, she said, by not taking this seriously.

They put me in speech therapy again in 8th grade, despite my protests. I thought that if I just sucked it up for another year and played nice, then I could be done with this. My speech-language pathologist congratulated me on being kinder, more responsible. I don't like compliments from authority figures all that much, they feel like being poisoned.

I was right: they didn't put me in speech therapy in high school, despite my speech still not being "perfect." If I hadn't figured it out by now, they said, it was probably not going to happen. I made as much progress as I could. Sometimes people just have something wrong with them, and there is nothing to be done.

I gave a speech in my communications class, senior year of high school. We were supposed to talk about something that set us apart from others. I didn't really know what to say. After all, its hard to know who you are when every aspect of yourself has been shaped, with all your edges filled down.

I chose to talk about the fact I have rhotacism. Later, my teacher told me that she couldn't even tell. I cried when I got home.

When thinking of children's autonomy, it is very easy to scoff at the concept. It is very easy for people to brush it aside. When you are a kid, as previously stated, you don't question your lack of autonomy. You not having any say is normalized. You are used to it. When you are a teenager, you still largely experience this lack of autonomy, but most are given a sliver of it. Besides, children are just so annoying. Your younger brother pissed you off the other day by being too loud. The elementary schooler on the bus argued with you about something you were obviously right about. Obviously, they shouldn't get autonomy. They wouldn't use it right.

When you become a young adult, while you are still denied much autonomy (especially when you are 18 & 19), you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. You had to go through all that bullshit, it makes sense that now you get to reap the rewards -- go from the one lacking autonomy, to the one who has it. The idea that children don't get autonomy starts to benefit you even more, you get to be the one that denies their autonomy for your convenience and for your beliefs.

By the time you are firmly into adulthood, the idea that kids don't deserve autonomy has been so ingrained in you that you don't even realize it exists. You have forgotten what it was like to be a kid.

But people don't really want to reckon with that. After all, they had to deal with it, why can't others? They had to deal with it, and now get to be the boot rather than crushed by it, why would they give up that chance? Why would they forgo something that they like. Why would you treat a child as an equal, when not doing so benefits you?

So, when talking about autonomy for children, sometimes you have to start small. Start with something more palatable. Something like "maybe the way I speak should be up to me."