my dad + jetlag

An Email from my dad, Robert (Bob) Gale. Posted with his permission.

"Thanks M. I love reading your blogs about everything so keep them coming. It is really entertaining for us. BTW… Whenever I see you sign off as “M” I think of 007. James Bond’s boss is a lady that everyone calls M. She is tough!

Love, B… or shall I use D (for Dad), or R (for Robert). We already have a B in our family (your grandpa was known as B) and we already have a D (cousin and uncle). I don’t like R much. It doesn’t sound strong enough like a D or a B would. The air rushes out in a little pop with B and the tongue forces out a little pop with D making them both sound rather forceful. But R? Just a retarded sound that sounds like you can’t remember what you were going to say, like “R, I don’t know.” You have to leave the mouth open and vulnerable with no definite control or punctuation to the sound. What a boring and stupid sound. Even A would be more fun. It too is just an open sound with no punctuation but at least it has connotation to being number 1 (since we use A’s for the top marks) and it is the first letter of the alphabet. Nobody uses R to denote anything special. Even P has a nice pop to it. Z is nice. N is nice. E is not good. Listen to that sound. It’s the sound you make when you’re scared. It is probably a runner up for R. F is not nice. It’s the letter we use in lieu of the cuss word. G is okay. Kind of a sound of surprise or amazement. H at least is a sound of character. It’s fun to articulate. I is good. J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, S, T, U, V, X, Y, Z are all great letters and sounds to use for a name substitute. W is great too but far too long of a sound. Who ever heard of making three syllabic sounds to form one stupid letter. In Italian they call W, dopio V which means double V. More descriptive but far too much work to pronounce. All words and sounds that make words should be short and forceful and strong yet not hard to enunciate. We must conserve our tongue energy for more important things, like eating and kissing and sticking it out at people you don’t like. Don’t waste it on pronouncing silly letters of the alphabet. Ha! How’s that for a blog?"

He sure does know how to talk to a speech pathologist. :) I'm taking an entire class this semester about phonology and articulation. Also, I have a few kids on my caseload at the elementary school who have trouble saying "r". I brought home this book to get some ideas. I'm not sure if R is the hardest sound in the WORLD. But it makes me feel important. I think R is cool. Especially because its the hardest one (at least in English) to pronounce, so saying it and claiming it as your own is like showing off.