Twin Language

After a long day filled with poor speech I sat at my desk answering calls for prep scores consistently asking for 'feel golds'. Confused? No, 'feel golds' has nothing to do with any sport. I'm not even sure it fits into a sentence correctly. Totals for field goals are important in the high school basketball realm which is where I was. Partially.

The majority of my brain fell asleep and of the small portion left I connected with an ugly truth—my speech impediment. I've known about it for years. As a four or five year old I ran from my house to my cousin's next-door home ranting and raving about all things. This was the time in my life when I was loud and energetic screaming, dancing, singing completely unaware that I didn't know how to talk.

Until Tracy and Brian (cousins) informed me that something was wrong. They had a large black lab and it jumped on me so I was a little scared of it. The new pup was worse. I stood behind the fence yelling about some 'lellow' bike or popsicle or toy. I'm not sure but I remember repeating it time and time again.

"Say Yellow," Brian said.

"Lellow," I replied.

"No, Yellow," he said.

"Yeah, lellow," said I.

"Not lellow, Y-ellow," tried Tracy.

"Oh, L-ellow," I said satisfied.

"NO, Y-Y-Y-Yellow," they exclaimed.

"Huh?"

"Yellow with a y not an l," Tracy offered.

"That's what I'm saying," I insisted.

And I went home and asked my family who agreed with my cousins and the rest of the world, that when speaking English Y and L don't interchange. I practiced my yellows.

I got my consonants reasonable sorted but those vowels trouble me still. And I knew I was screwed when the twins pointed out that pin and pen sound different because they're spelled different. Hmmm. I practiced my vowels. But wait, how did Amber and Heather notice my slurred sounds? Why did they pick up on something so commonplace in Lamar?

Years of speech therapy that was needed after they developed twin language. My mom thinks they'd stopped speaking it when I was around. I lay blame on their jumbled language meant for two spoken during my developmental stage. My pronunciation suffers.