Lisps

// Misthinterpretationsth

By Tristan Smith .
05.02.09 // Lisps

Great moments in history have only been recorded for auditory posterity for the past hundred years or so.  This means that while we’ve captured a few beauties (“The only thing we have to fear is asking not what your country can do for you, but what you can do so that someone can someone can cry “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall”) we’ve missed out on some really good stuff, too.

It also means we only know that recent good ones actually sounded good.  Just as I sometimes fear that I might have a weird way of pronouncing my ‘s’ sounds that no one is telling me about because they feel bad, I sometimes fear that great moments in world history were actually lisped.

It’s possible that the Gettysburg Address came out “Four Sthcore and Stheven Yearths ago…”  And while the words themselves are just as imperial, the pronunciation kind of ruins the Glory movie moment that I like to envision when I’m doing some deep Lincoln thinkin.

I worry about Caeser.  “Et tu Brutusth” is just awkward and weak, and looks uncomfortably like toothbrush.

Most of all, though, I worry about JC, the blue-eyed white skinned zombie prophet himself.  Remember when he said “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone”?  With a lisp, that kind of sounds like “Let him who is without sthin”, which would have meant fat guys could become the arbiters of society.

Maybe that could be OK.  I mean, most fat dudes are pretty fun, so they’d probably keep it real.

View Comments / May 02.09 / Lisps / by Tristan Smith

// Casting Call: A Few Good Men (Florence, SC)

By Charles Hodges .
05.02.09 // Lisps

Casey Frederickson is a urologist in Florence, South Carolina.  The local theater company is producing a play of his favorite movie.  He wants the part – ttttthhhhooooo bad.

View Comments / May 02.09 / Lisps / by Charles Hodges

// What Does Your Dog’s Voice Sound Like?

By Joey Camire .
05.01.09 // Lisps

What Does Your Dog’s Voice Sound Like? from Blommit on Vimeo.

View Comments / May 01.09 / Lisps / by Joey Camire

// I can sound like a cowboy, Darth Vader, a silent film, or a crazy Icelandic lady.

By Ben Cheney .
04.30.09 // Lisps

I’ve had a lisp my whole life.  It’s a very pronounced lisp that tends to show up in words that don’t even include the letter ‘s’.  For example, when I came out of my mother’s womb, I cried with a lisp.  My first word was ‘mommy’  and I said that with a lisp too.  ‘Barbecue’ catches my lisp as does ‘Titanic’, which is my favorite movie, so I say it all the time.

My parents sent me to doctors and speech therapists all over the country to try to ‘cure’ my lisp, but nothing has worked.  We thought it was a nervous tick at first.  But it’s not, because I don’t get nervous.  I’m missing the part of my brain that creates the nervous feeling inside of people.  So that can’t be it.

Then they thought I may have something wrong with my tongue muscles, but that wasn’t right either.  They were going to give me a tongue transplant but called off the surgery at the last minute because insurance wouldn’t cover it.  (But it would have been awesome because it was John Wayne’s tongue and I could have sounded like a cowboy!)

Finally, the doctors came to the conclusion that my lisp was a combination of physical and mental factors that were too complex for modern medicine.  My parents were upset at first, because it seemed like all hope was lost for their lisping little boy.  But, the doctors mentioned the possibility of a new technology called the Think Speak.

By attaching several nodes and wires to your head, Think Speak translates your thoughts into spoken word.  The words are spoken by a computerized voice (that sounds remarkably human) from a computer that clips around your waist like a fanny pack.  I don’t think with a lisp, so now I don’t talk with a lisp!  And I can change my voice to sound like just about anyone ever, like Charlie Chaplin, James Earl Jones, Bjork, and even John Wayne.

There are a few set backs, however.  Like when I think something that no one else is supposed to know, maybe about a ladies boobs or that I don’t like the person I’m talking to.  It’s rather awkward when someone is talking to me and I interrupt the conversation with, “I don’t like you.”  And there’s also a slight delay between the thinking and the speaking, kind of like when Dan Rather is talking to a correspondent in Iraq and there is the awkward delay in the conversation about bombs or terror.

But other than that, I love my Think Speak.  Heck, I’m the only person I know that can speak with their brain.

View Comments / Apr 30.09 / Lisps / by Ben Cheney

// I’m Going to Hell

By Jake Dubs .
04.28.09 // Lisps

For ath long ath I can remember, I’ve been thorta fat.

For yearth, I’ve gone from one diet to the nextht. Nothing hath worked. It’th not a big deal, though. I’ve grown to acthept it.

Tho fuck it.

Life ith short.

It’th time to thtop worrying and thtart living. It’th time to eat what we want. More detherths. Leth vegetablthes.

One of my favorite detherths ith apple crithp.

For anyone who’th never had it, I have to tell you, it’th eathy to make and one of the motht delithiouth thingths you can eat. With a thick, crunchy, thinnamony topping over brown sugar-coated apple thlithces, you’ll be thuper glad you made it.

The rethipe is thimple. Take a look:

You’ll need the following ingredienths:

-4 appleths- peeled, cored and thliced
-1 cup all-purpoth flour
-3/4 cup white sugar
-1/2 cup brown sugar
-2 tablethpoons melted butter
-1 teathpoon ground thinnamon
-1/4 teathpoon thalt
-1 egg, beaten with a thpoon
(If you want to get crazy, you can even add peacheth, berrieth or even pearth!)

Onth you’ve got all your ingredienths, the firthst thing you’re gonna need to do ith preheat your oven to three-hundred-and-theventy-five degreeth farenheit (190 degreeth thelthius). In a 9 inch thquare baking pan, you’re gonna mix the thliced appleths with brown sugar. In a large bowl, mixth together the flour, white sugar, thinnamon and thalt. In a thmall bowl, beat together the egg and melted butter. Thtir into flour mixthture, and thpread evenly over the appleths. After that, bake at all in the preheated oven for 30 to 40 minuteth, or until the topping ith golden and crithp.  Thlithe into it with a sharp kitchen utenthil, top it with thome nithe, cold vanilla ithe cream, and enjoy it while thipping a glath of milk and a good thong playing on the thtereo.

I guarantee you’ll enjoy it ath much ath I do!

View Comments / Apr 28.09 / Lisps / by Jake Dubs

// Skysurfing and Speed-Dating

By Alex Aloise .
04.28.09 // Lisps

View Comments / Apr 28.09 / Lisps / by Alex Aloise

// Derelict Dialect

By Jordan Childs .
04.26.09 // Lisps

What we saw on Saturday afternoon Nick, was not a character but a genuine reflection of a young man whose future was already lamented in stone. So those saddled with this unfortunate lot in life are wise to take advantage of such a thing. Just as Castilian Spanish is celebrated as a beautifully evolved dialect, to us it sounds like the jumbled warbling of this culture’s linguistically disabled. The tide must turn. A few pioneers among us have made careers of the dreaded tongue crackle and more of this sect have the responsibility to come out and embrace their genetic make-up. No longer will they be mocked, stereotyped or poorly mimicked for something for which there is no control. Just as over-sized is the new “right” size, so too should this interdental differentiation be embraced as the new lingua franca.

View Comments / Apr 26.09 / Lisps / by Jordan Childs