words that people can't say

when i was a kid, i couldn't say the word "specific." i could only say "suh-pacific." ever determined, i trained myself to say "specific" by reasoning, "irene, if you can say SPAGHETTI, then you can say SUH-PACIFIC." makes sense, right?? this kind of self coaching paid off and soon enough, I was able to say "specific" with no trouble at all. (incidentally, the other word that gave me problems was the word "intrigued." I pronounced it "introoged" in my head for over 8 years before i found out how it was really pronounced. and then i actually said, "that's very introoging, mr. pilch!" in 6th grade and it was really embarassing.)

Anyway, the other day i took a an abs class at my gym. my instructor, marcus, couldn't say the word "two". he would count, "ONE STEW THREE FOUR! ONE STEW THREE FOUR!" and it was highly distracting. Especially since he started the class by saying "Class: Today, we are working on perfecting our plank position." If he can say "today", why can't he say "two?".

I guess it's a bigger problem than people realize 'cause I once knew a person who couldn't say the word "shrimp." I noticed it because he would say "prawns" instead of shrimp. When I asked him why he said "prawns", he said it was because he couldn't say "shrimp" because he sometimes had issues with the "sh" sound. obviously, I forced him to say "shrimp" 10 times over really fast. And this is what it sounded like "srimp srimp srimp srimp srimp srimp srimp srimp srimp srimp" can you believe it?

I told him about how I used have issues with the word "specific" and that we all can get over minor speech impediments with tenacity and practice and told him to say, "Shirley's Surely Shrimpy!" 5 times every day. He thought I was making fun of him and he walked away in a huff. What a same.