Getting back to the orginal post what causes this. Like I had a lisp because I broke a tooth. When it was capped it stopped.
Also don’t the Japanese(or Chinese) have trouble with the R and change it to a w.
Just to add my opinion to the matter, my twin brother and I both suffered from Elmer Fudd Syndrome. After speech therapy, though, we were all better. But now we both have odd accents. We’re from Jacksonville, FL, but almost everybody when they first meet me ask where I’m from. They’re always surprised that I’m from Jacksonville. Some people don’t even believe I’m from this country. I say words such as talk and walk as “taulk” and “waulk” or “tawlk” and “wawlk”. Hard to describe in just typing, but I guess try pronouncing it. I’m not sure where this came from, but my brother assumes it’s from the speech therapy we went through when we were 6-7.
Release Roger!!!
To quote from the book “Japanese - The Easy Way” by Karen Sandness:
“You’re probably aware of the stereotype that says that Japanese people have trouble telling the difference between R and L. This stereotype happens to be absolutely true. Unless they have learned a foreign language in childhood, most Japanese can neither hear nor produce the difference between these to consonants. The reason is that the Japanese sound usually transcribed as R is really halfway between R and L, and as people speak, the sound drifts sometimes closer to R and sometimes closer to L, but it doesn’t make any difference which direction the sound drifts in. (Of course, English speakers have trouble with the difference between the long and short vowels and the difference between su and tsu, so it all comes out even in the end.”
I have another speech-impediment question. Some relatives on my mom’s side of the family have this funny way of saying their "s"s, whereby it sounds as if they have a cheekful of spit while they’re talking (it’s hard to describe, but easy to imitate: accumulate your saliva in your cheeks for a moment, stretch your mouth into a closed-jawed grimace, and force air out through your teeth. Hear that bubbly hissing sound? Ok, now do that every time you say a word with an “s” sound in it). My brother & I used to like to make fun of it when we were kids (not to their faces, only behind their backs). Sorry, but it’s funny. OK, maybe it’s just us.
Anyway, I wonder if anyone else knows people who talk like that? Anyone know why they talk like that?
Although Daffy was supposedly based on Schlesinger voice-wise, Elmer possibly had an inspiration as well. Rudolph Ising (of the Harman-Ising pair who did the early Bosko cartoons), according to an interview with Bob Clampett in the famous Funnyworld publication, was telling the other employees about himself going hunting and having trouble chasing a rabbit. One of them (possibly Clampett, I forget) then drew a humorous sketch of a man in a hunter’s outfit captioned “Wittle Wudy Wabbit,” with a footnote, “R’s replaced with W’s.” I wouldn’t be surprised if this is where Elmer’s impediment came from.
There was a Civil War historian/author on Booknotes one time who had the Elmer Fudd impediment. His talk went something like this:
AUTHOR: So then the Webuhs wouted the Fedewah twoops at Fuhst Buhl Wun…
AUDIENCE: Robert E. Lee!!
AUTHOR: Huh?
AUDIENCE: Robert E. Lee!! Say, “Robert E. Lee”!!
AUTHOR: Wobuht E. Wee
AUDIENCE: BWWWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
The dean of the yeshivah I went to does the same thing with pronouncing L as W. (Supposedly this was/is widespread among Jews from the town of Nevel in Russia, which is indeed where he was raised.)
He also often reads publicly from the Torah, so we used to often joke about how he’d read a particular verse (Numbers 22:37) where almost every word in the Hebrew text has an L sound in it. (Sample - transliterated as best I can: “Vayoimer bowok ew biwom, hawoi showoiach showakhti eiwekho…”)
[villian interrogating Maxwell Smart] “Not the Craw, THE CRAW!” [/villian interrogating Maxwell Smart]
I had a college professor who lived through the Russian revolution and eventually came to the US. When he first saw and heard an Elmer Fudd cartoon, he thought it was some sort of capitalist joke. To him, Elmer Fudd sounded exactly like Vladimir Lenin.
On a related note, I’m pretty sure that the lisp possessed by Vargo Hoat from George R.R. Martin’s “ASOIAF” series was inspired by Daffy Duck.
He alwayth talkth like thith, but ith a totally thcary badath nonetheleth.
Its called rhotacism
[Cartoon Brooklyn accent] “Oiving, Da Doity Toitle.”
Hi Heatherlynn2020. Your reply would have been timely if you had been Heatherlynn2001, or even Heatherlynn2003, but you’re the first person to post to this thread in 17 years.
As an American, I can see that.
I remember hearing someone remark, that to Europeans, hearing a lively conversation of Americans conversing among themselves sounded to her ears like people saying “RAR RAR RAR RAR”. Definitely made me chuckle hearing that.
A co-worker of Hong Kong origin - when asked where she dined, she said “I went to Red Robster”.
Fudd suffers from a cartoon version of rhotacism. As noted, it was once a feigned accent among some British regiments, perhaps in imitation of some worthy. Oddly, I have never encountered it in the wild.
Geocities.com was long ago replaced by Geocities.ws, so it can now be found here.
BTW, cochrane, despite our being Jews from the New York area, he was too young at the time to appreciate the value of replacing “r” with “oi”, so he used the “w” that was reported in so many posts in this thread. With the help of a great speech therapist, his pronunciation was been great since age nine or so.
I’m sorry, Keeve. I was poking fun at the stereotypical cartoon trope about characters speaking in a New York accent and had no intention of making fun of your son.
And that’s exactly how I took it. No harm, no foul.