Losing your illusions about yourself

[pbray]

Being a published author means regularly ego checks. Whether it's that one-star Amazon review from JesusRainbowUnicorn, or my latest adventure, discovering that I have a lisp when recording sample pronunciations for the audio books. Yesssss, my presssssciousssss..... when I pronounce the 's' sound it lasts for several geologic eras.

One the flip side, I was surprised by which words are proving problematic. I figured I'd hit a personal best with names that included Jhrve and Txomin, but the narrator initially stumbled over "learned" as in "Learned Brethren." In my head, the word has two syllables "lear-ned" when used in phrases such as learned colleagues, learned professors etc. And it has one syllable (lernd) when talking about learned behavior, "I learned French in school", etc.

The narrator was initially pronouncing Learned Brethren as "Lernd Brethren" which would have driven me up a tree since it appears frequently in this book, but he was cheerfully able to make the switch to the two syllable version. Let's hope the rest of this process goes as smoothly.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I have a Welsh border accent when I'm recorded, which is weird, as I never hear it in myself.
Fingers crossed for the rest of the recording.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I have a really hard time listening to myself, whether it's audio interviews, or video recordings, I keep wondering when I was replaced by a spastic chipmunk.

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I finished breakfast before I read about JesusRainbowUnicorn... ;-)

[pbray.livejournal.com]

It's from Matt Haig's brilliant essay 10 Reasons Not to Be A Writer (http://www.matthaig.com/10-reasons-not-to-be-a-writer/).

[libwitch.livejournal.com]

Reading this outloud - I would have pronounced it the same way as you in both cases. I also have a lisp ; and I switch my r's and W's when I get tired unless I think about them first (leading to noticable pauses in my speech) - and that is after 10 years or so of speech therapy.

But I am less likely to notice lisps in others - or maybe I do notice them and then ignore them out of sympathy.