I had a university lecturer who stuttered. He had recently retired, and had come back to the Religious Studies department because his replacement had been dismissed under secret circumstances, though we suspected it had something to do with her not-so-secret hatred of all things Christian. (I guess the Religious Studies department aims for an academic approach rather than a fervent one.)
Anyway, this elderly man introduced his stutter along with his name by explaining that after his nerves calm down so does his stutter, and that after a while we’d hardly notice it. I was filled with admiration for this man, who had built an entire career on lecturing to large groups of people — a task many people without any speech difficulty whatsoever would find daunting. I wondered how long it took him to get to that place.
Due to the inadequacy of our previous lecturer, I was completely baffled about everything Christian, and had no idea where to start writing about some highly specific and esoteric topic regarding The Holy Bible. So I did what I was slowly being trained not to: I actually visited a lecturer during office hours and requested personalised help. My experience of university lecturers thus far had been one of condescending dismissiveness. But this little old man with the quiet manner and the severe stutter seemed approachable, so as a timid first year student, I did make my way along the corridors of the dark and dingy Religious Studies department (which I’m sure had a whiff of togas and lentils), and I did knock on his door.
As a consequence, I had the most helpful and kindhearted staff-student interaction that I experienced at university. One on one, his stammer was much less. He directed me to a certain book in the library*, and so I went, and it was helpful and I walked away with a good grade before promptly forgetting everything I ever read on the subject. (Not to mention the subject itself. Such is a university education.)
Ever since then I’ve thought that people with stutters are more likely nicer and more empathetic than the rest of us. I’m aware that this is just another bias, like assuming Labradors probably aren’t going to bite you, due only to the nature of people likely to own Labradors rather than the inherent nature of the dogs themselves — dogs are dogs, after all — but listening to an interview with David Mitchell reminded me of the general niceness of adult stutterers (or at least, the one or two I have met in my entire lifetime.)
This Radio New Zealand interview with David Mitchell is worth a listen, if only to learn best practice for conversing with people who stammer. (Short answer: Don’t finish their sentences, because you’re almost always wrong.) It’s also interesting to learn the extent to which speech and language therapies have advanced recently. David Mitchell doesn’t sound at all like someone with a stutter, but that’s only because he’s consistently employing strategies he has learnt from therapy. For people who stutter, speaking is a constant extra effort, even when they appear to have been ‘cured’. As someone who has no trouble speaking, this blows my mind. But it does remind me of speaking in a foreign language (Japanese, in my case, which I didn’t start learning until the age of 12), in which I have never stopped being conscious of grammar in some recess of my brain, even after gaining the outward appearance of fluency. Perhaps an empathy for people who stutter leads on to an empathy for the many, many adults around the world who are living the bulk of their lives as non-native speakers of another language. Native proficiency, along with neurotypical fluency, is a privilege.
The David Mitchell interview dates from the release of The King’s Speech film, which I loved. I’m sure this isn’t just down to my interest in stuttering. Like many from the colonies, I suspect part of my enjoyment came from the irreverence of Lionel Logue, or the chutzpah that could only come from someone who doesn’t give a fig about the rules: i.e. having actual speech and language qualifications. Down here, we like to think that we’re rebels and rule-breakers, especially compared to the Brits.
Related: article in Prospect Magazine by David Mitchell
* A strange thing happened when I visited the religious studies section of the central library, bereft of humans except for one young man who, like me, was poring over one of the many volumes from The Encyclopedia of Christianity (a truly soporific read, if you’re in the market for a cure to insomnia). When I took my seat a few spaces downwind — not so far away as to cause offence — the young man looked up and smiled warmly. ‘Hi, how are you?’ he said, ominously. This wasn’t a normal library experience — not for me, anyway. The only library interactions I ever had were people telling me to turn my pages more quietly, or glaring because I’d opened a window, or silent jostles for the last desk during exam week. In fact, the closest I had to meaningful human interaction was reading political graffiti on the toilet walls. Anyway, I assumed this young man had visited the same professor as I had. WHO ELSE WOULD BE HERE.
And because I was the super-conscientious type, as a matter of research I saw an ad in the newspaper and for reasons that now baffle me, I decided as part of my research to attend a big Christian event in the centre of town that very night. A schoolfriend of mine had since joined a fundamentalist Christian church and she didn’t take much convincing to drive me there. (I was still getting about on a pushbike.) Naively, I’d assumed from the advertising material that this ‘public lecture’ was an academic approach to Christianity, but as soon as I got there, I realised how wrong as wrong I could be. This was a huge townhall CHOCK FULL of evangelist types, and as soon as I pulled out my pen and paper, the woman sitting to my left greeted me in that warm, Christian manner and asked if I were a journalist. No, just a student… And then a young man sitting RIGHT IN FRONT of us turned around — with the generic kind of face you could swear you’ve seen before — and flashed me yet another warm grin of genuine proportions — and I started to wonder if I’d get out of that place without a series of hugs. I have always been a magnet for the insistent, born-again converting types.
“Fancy meeting you here,” said the young man, and I’m sure I looked bug-eyed and unenthusiastic right back at him, so he turned right back around.
Then it clicked. That strangely familiar face had been sitting right next to me in the library that very morning. “Oooooh, right,” I said, and whispered something to my friend about this being a fucking small town, despite the recent population growth.
“She just remembered where she saw you from,” said my Christian friend loudly and helpfully, as the dude swiveled back around. For some reason I felt compelled to tell him why I was here; I wasn’t actually Christian, just a student trying to pass the Christianity part of my religious studies course which I’d only chosen because I needed another 6 first-year points, and I didn’t fancy another dose of Shakespeare. (Shakespeare, in hindsight, would have since come in handy.)
I was informed that there is no such thing as a coincidence. I was told that The Lord had brought me here, and to him, and that I was obviously searching for something, and that something had something to with Jesus. I was only a hair’s breadth away from a relationship with Him. So I took the opportunity to quiz him — and my friend — and my new friend sitting to the left, about what exactly that moment looks like.
Apparently, Jesus comes up behind you and gives you a massive hug. That’s what it was like for library dude, anyway. Others offered a more waffly, spiritual ‘knowing’, and I have to admit, I haven’t been Jesus-hugged yet, but, as suggested, I am totally open to that possibility, and if it does eventually happen I’ll be sure to let you all know. (Likewise ghosts. I’m itching to see a ghost, or an alien. It’s the not knowing that’s killing me here, folks.)
By dog that was the longest Public Lecture ever. After that night I kept right away from the Religious Studies section of the library. We moved on to South Asian religions. I managed to avoid that dodgy part of downtown-library by purchasing my own copy of the Bhagavad Gita which, happily, is long since out of copyright and which can be scored for a very low price, otherwise unheard of among university textbooks.
There was that meal with the Hare Krishnas, which is another story.
For all I know, Evangelical Library Dude has since moved on and joined a sect of Hare Krishnas himself. I’ll never ever know. (I wouldn’t join for the food.)
But if I was searching for something, I did eventually find it. At the age of 27 I read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and decided to finally get off the fence and start identifying as atheist. Loaded as that term is, I have found it useful as an occasional conversation stopper, and I highly recommend it if you’re that way inclined.
