What happened to your stammer?" "I suppose I must feel comfortable with you. I tend to stammer less with certain people. " "No one's ever told me that I'm a comfortable sort. I'm sure I don't like it. I'll have to do something diabolical soon to correct your impression.
POWER: The ability to make our fellow humans squirm, sweat and stammer on command. Often regarded as an aphrodisiac; actually a potent laxative that, whenever ingested by people in high places, causes everyone below to run for cover.
When liberal celebs stammer out a litany of shopworn bleats about the administration's attempt to turn America into a theocratic prison state, people can't help but notice that these buskers and mummers seem unmoved by the horrors of actual prison states. (Saddam commissioned a copy of the Quran written in his own blood - but John Ashcroft is the real religious nut, don't you know. )
Holy Scripture is so exalted that there is no one in the world. . . wise enough to understand it so fully that his intellect is not overcome by it. Nevertheless, man can stammer something about it.
For 'tis sweet to stammer one letter Of the Eternal's language; - on earth it is called Forgiveness!
I mean, I'm 6-foot-11, I've got red hair, freckles, I'm a goofy, nerdy-looking guy, I've got a speech impediment-I stutter and stammer all the time-and I'm a Deadhead.
I had this terrible stammer, so I couldn't really speak properly until I was 16 or 17.
Something that had an enormous influence over my relationship with language was my stammer. I had a really bad stammer in my childhood and adolescence, and that imbues you with two things. First, a hyper-sensitivity to grammar, because a stammerer will have problematic sounds, impossible verbal stumbling blocks. Second, writing is just such a joy when you have a problem with speaking. It's so astonishing to watch language coming out of your pen without any hesitation or dysfluency.
