I witnessed somebody go through a temporary form of this after brain surgery. They could converse relatively normally except were completely unable to make decisions.
They would talk about the bird songs from outside but being asked if they wanted a coffee would freeze. Thankfully they made a full recovery after a few months.
A note to writers, when a stroke or other brain injury victim relearns speech the worst comparison you can make is "speaking french" or "like Steffi Graf" because it's not an acquired foreign accent syndrome, it's a brain injury.
It's a speech impairment. They're relearning how to form words. Just because one culture forms a rhotic R one way and another culture forms it another way or even deprecates it doesn't make you speak in their accent.
Myabe a bit pedantic but I've always disliked this "my husband spoke French after his stroke" thing.
I admit .. "like Steffi Graff" signals how it sounds, at least to somebody. My friends with stroke speech impairment spoke like they'd had dental local anaesthetic, or were talking through a mouthful of marbles. It's as if they had lost control of some of the finer grained muscles related to speech and had the gross motor skills for the breath, the vocal cords, and the jaw only.
I totally agree with what you're saying, but just to note that in this article, the person who had the stroke is describing the experience. Whether someone told her that or whether she heard it herself, she found it meaningful enough to describe it that way herself.
A more favorable look is that the impeded person sounds like someone who has to learn the language as a non-native. If you've read the bit about her learning to walk consciously, it's not an odd comparison. Everything has to be done from the "wrong" starting point.
She calls it "her German," BTW.
PS I should add there are quite a few different types of aphasia. The case in the article seems uncommon.
Well I'd need to see an actual example of the French thing. But I think a comparison to a thick accent would often work. When I speak Spanish my accent involves enough consistent clumsy wrongness that you could probably compare it to a speech impediment in a native Spanish speaker.
I sometimes feel like I have a "high functioning" version of this. I have no trouble expressing myself, but it often feels like a puzzle of translating internal concepts to a context-appropriate word approximation.
There is something similar that I experienced by learning a second language through exposure and not doing much precision based practice. Having words that you can understand when you hear but can’t use yourself is one thing, but when you start speaking words (that are actually correct to what you want to say) that you don’t understand when hearing yourself it’s quite disorientating.
Wow, thank you! This is really validating for such an odd experience.
That happened (and still does) with my second language, absorbed mostly through immersion/native exposure on a day-to-day basis.
When I go into that language mode and am having a conversation, my brain can pick a word and speak it, and I have no idea where I learned it, or even if it was correct? It will immediately sound strange and "unknown" to me. I would struggle to define the word, and if it was spoken to me I probably wouldn't understand it. It just felt correct to fit it there in the conversation.
Then I google translate it and find out "huh, yeah, that was actually correct and completely appropriate in that context".
This was a disturbing read, it felt like 1/3rd was documenting continued symptoms that really affected her life and ability to think clearly or substantively, without saying it explicitly.
They're helping implement the policy. If you think the rules don't make sense, argue for changing them, don't criticize the people following them.
FWIW I think having (2025) for something 1 month ago in January, but nothing 11 months ago in December, doesn't really make much sense. I'd change it to add a year only for things at least a year old. But I barely think it's worth writing this paragraph about in a post I'm already writing for another reason. Definitely not worth giving someone else grief about.
It's zero value to you, but it's not zero value to the mods (as evidenced by the fact that the title has been changed).
"I can't change the minds of the people running the site, but I can make life unpleasant for people who help them achieve their vision" is not an OK attitude to have.
You can't appeal the rules because there's no governance process for it.
Unless dang or whatever makes a separate "Debate" section or similar. Ironically, a debate thread about the rules would violate the rules themselves. Well, unless you make it a rage blog post first...
I had a weird experience with thankfully very temporary aphasia 20 years ago, which I wrote a bit about here: https://dmd.3e.org/2005-11-23-aphasia-and-back-sunday-20-nov...
That sounds absolutely terrifying. Glad you recovered!
wow, thank you for sharing that, fascinating read! glad you (presumably) recovered well from that episode, sounds quite scary!
I witnessed somebody go through a temporary form of this after brain surgery. They could converse relatively normally except were completely unable to make decisions.
They would talk about the bird songs from outside but being asked if they wanted a coffee would freeze. Thankfully they made a full recovery after a few months.
A note to writers, when a stroke or other brain injury victim relearns speech the worst comparison you can make is "speaking french" or "like Steffi Graf" because it's not an acquired foreign accent syndrome, it's a brain injury.
It's a speech impairment. They're relearning how to form words. Just because one culture forms a rhotic R one way and another culture forms it another way or even deprecates it doesn't make you speak in their accent.
Myabe a bit pedantic but I've always disliked this "my husband spoke French after his stroke" thing.
I admit .. "like Steffi Graff" signals how it sounds, at least to somebody. My friends with stroke speech impairment spoke like they'd had dental local anaesthetic, or were talking through a mouthful of marbles. It's as if they had lost control of some of the finer grained muscles related to speech and had the gross motor skills for the breath, the vocal cords, and the jaw only.
I totally agree with what you're saying, but just to note that in this article, the person who had the stroke is describing the experience. Whether someone told her that or whether she heard it herself, she found it meaningful enough to describe it that way herself.
yes. I suspect it's a common approach, but when it becomes the News of the Weird headline it does my head in.
A more favorable look is that the impeded person sounds like someone who has to learn the language as a non-native. If you've read the bit about her learning to walk consciously, it's not an odd comparison. Everything has to be done from the "wrong" starting point.
She calls it "her German," BTW.
PS I should add there are quite a few different types of aphasia. The case in the article seems uncommon.
Well I'd need to see an actual example of the French thing. But I think a comparison to a thick accent would often work. When I speak Spanish my accent involves enough consistent clumsy wrongness that you could probably compare it to a speech impediment in a native Spanish speaker.
https://www.stroke.org/en/fast-experience
I sometimes feel like I have a "high functioning" version of this. I have no trouble expressing myself, but it often feels like a puzzle of translating internal concepts to a context-appropriate word approximation.
There is something similar that I experienced by learning a second language through exposure and not doing much precision based practice. Having words that you can understand when you hear but can’t use yourself is one thing, but when you start speaking words (that are actually correct to what you want to say) that you don’t understand when hearing yourself it’s quite disorientating.
Wow, thank you! This is really validating for such an odd experience.
That happened (and still does) with my second language, absorbed mostly through immersion/native exposure on a day-to-day basis.
When I go into that language mode and am having a conversation, my brain can pick a word and speak it, and I have no idea where I learned it, or even if it was correct? It will immediately sound strange and "unknown" to me. I would struggle to define the word, and if it was spoken to me I probably wouldn't understand it. It just felt correct to fit it there in the conversation.
Then I google translate it and find out "huh, yeah, that was actually correct and completely appropriate in that context".
It's so strange.
The movie Bedazzled with Brendan Fraser has a scene where he wishes he was rich and powerful and wakes up as a Colombian drug lord.
When his butler asks him a question he says “Pardon, no hablo espanol. Uno momento! Mucho hablo espanol!”
It’s similar to that. You surprise yourself all the time.
This was a disturbing read, it felt like 1/3rd was documenting continued symptoms that really affected her life and ability to think clearly or substantively, without saying it explicitly.
(2025)
(this is all you ever do on this site) are you worried that it's now (out of date) given that it's now February? Was there something in your pancakes?
They are just being helpful
What's the help? Is having a stroke in Feb 2026 different from in 2025?
They're helping implement the policy. If you think the rules don't make sense, argue for changing them, don't criticize the people following them.
FWIW I think having (2025) for something 1 month ago in January, but nothing 11 months ago in December, doesn't really make much sense. I'd change it to add a year only for things at least a year old. But I barely think it's worth writing this paragraph about in a post I'm already writing for another reason. Definitely not worth giving someone else grief about.
There's no rule that you have to make a zero-value comment when you see an article from last year.
It's zero value to you, but it's not zero value to the mods (as evidenced by the fact that the title has been changed).
"I can't change the minds of the people running the site, but I can make life unpleasant for people who help them achieve their vision" is not an OK attitude to have.
If you have a message to the mods you are supposed to email them.
You can't appeal the rules because there's no governance process for it.
Unless dang or whatever makes a separate "Debate" section or similar. Ironically, a debate thread about the rules would violate the rules themselves. Well, unless you make it a rage blog post first...