What’s in a Word?
The past two weeks I’ve been researching audiobooks. Never in a million years would I have thought that this is something I’d be doing in January 2026. While democracy crumbles around me I am contemplating an investment – an audiobook of my memoir. I have been told that audiobooks account for 13-20% of the market. It is a fast growing market and readers like my millennial and gen Z daughters are more likely to listen to than read a book.
I think I buried the lede here but how do audiobooks relate to the importance of words? Good question. While I was interviewing audiobook producers, I mentioned that I did not want to narrate the book. I hadn’t even thought about narrating the book, which is odd since it’s a memoir. When asked why I hadn’t thought about it I felt that familiar warm feeling of shame rising up my face.
The reason I hadn’t thought about it goes back to my cleft lip/cleft palate. I feel that I have a sort of nasal tonality that wouldn’t be pleasant for the listener. Did anyone ever tell me that specifically? No, no one ever has directly. It’s been more subtle. And it has to do with the word, “correction.” When I was a child, I was told my speech needed correcting. Was there something wrong with my speech? To the experts there was. When I was in elementary school I remember having to go to a special class after school where we worked on the “s” and other sounds. I also had to go to a private speech therapist.
A child with even a repaired cleft palate still has trouble speaking because of hypernasality where too much air is escaping and coming through the nose. We also worked on articulation of certain sounds such as the following:
- Improving Articulation (Pressure Consonants): Focusing on consonants that require high oral pressure, such as /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/, /s/, /f/, and /ch
- Targeting Specific Sounds: Practicing sounds in syllables (e.g., pa, pa, pa) to improve clarity
I didn’t think much of my speech as a child. My friends and family seemed to understand me just fine so I was surprised when my parents suggested that I take it as an elective during my sophomore year in high school. My “sophisticated” 14-year-old self rebelled at this and I cut the class at least once. It was the only class I ever cut in high school.
I thought that was the end of my adventures with speech correction. In my 30s, however, as a new prosecutor I took an evening class through the local University extension program on giving speeches as I thought it would help me in the courtroom. One evening the female instructor asked to speak with me after class. She asked whether I had ever considered further speech correction. I wasn’t sure what to make of this. But I’m always open to self-improvement so off I went to the expert, another speech therapist. This led me to try a device called an obturator which is akin to a retainer. At the end of the retainer however is a wire with a ball attached that fit snugly in the hole in my palate that was not totally closed during early surgeries. An obturator is a unique prosthetic device. I’m sure the device has helped many, but to me it was a device of torture. I constantly gagged on the device and finally gave it up, thinking I would have done better with it in my youth.
All of this was done in the name of “correction.” The word correction implies that something needs fixing. The subliminal message that I got was that there was something wrong with me. I internalized the word so soundly that I have spent decades on “correcting” and “fixing” my imperfect self.
My parents and doctors were well intentioned in helping me get fixed but parents and professionals need to work on their language and messaging and in having wholehearted conversations with their children about what exactly speech therapy and correction is.
What’s been “corrected” in your life?