Stamering And Cognate Defects Of Speech Vol - Ii

MODES OF ENUNCIATION, ETC. 145

As a means of avoiding difficult initial consonants

the stammerer is sometimes recommended to run
Ms words together, or to subjoin initial consonants

to the words preceding,
The following paragraph on the subject is by the

principal of an Irish stammering-school;

" You know, perhaps, that a man's stammering does not
affect {aflfectl Ms singing at all, try It if you are not sure. Well,

of course you see, that if you could say your words, as you sing
them, your stammering would vanish. What then is the differ-
ence In the way you produce your words in singing, and in
speaking? In shaking, you pronounce the words separately,

you say one word, and then make a short pause before beginning
the next, In singing you do not separate each word so en-
tirely ; there is no break in the sound between the words, you
try to make the pause as short as possible, and to begin one
word, immediately you have finished the preceding one. . , .
You must try then to imitate this singing method in your or-
dinary speech."

A German writer, after recommending prolongation

of the initial vowel of a sentence, continues;

11 But the stammerer will not always succeed in connecting
the succeeding Bounds of the sentence easily and without a
falter, lor he is accustomed to regarding the initial sound of
each word as a f rah beginning — whereas we speak the whole
phrase that occurs txrtween pauses as though it were a single
word* Therefore one must accustom the stammerer to regard-
ing the initial sound of each word m the final sound of the word
preceding, for it is a notorious fact that final sounds never
occasion difficulty/1