For comedian Drew Lynch stuttering is a feature rather than a bug

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I saw an interesting article by Gabriel Hays at Fox News on September 27, 2025 titled ‘Stuttering Comedian’ Drew Lynch says speech impediment turned out to be his biggest ‘gift.’ He has a Wikipedia page. And Drew has a nineteen-minute TEDx talk on November 8, 2022 titled Why curiosity gets you farther than ambition | Drew Lynch |TEDxNashville.

 

Contrast that with his nine-minute 2015 YouTube video titled Drew Lynch -Stuttering Comedian – America’s Got Talent 2015 Audition. There is a seven-minute video on August 8, 2025 titled Heckler Says I’m Lying About My Stutter. And there is an hour-long video on June 27, 2025 titled The Stuttering Comedian | Drew Lynch | Full Comedy Special.

 

The cartoon was adapted from this image at OpenClipArt.  

 

 

More about living with a stutter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Stuttering Foundation has an article from their Summer 2016 Newsletter about Mr. John Moore titled Stuttering and Public Speaking. It says:

 

“When speaking in public, John says there are two things he does at the beginning of every presentation. ‘I tell the audience two things about myself. First is my mantra: I take my job seriously, and myself lightly.’ And second, ‘I tell the audience that I stutter, and it will happen during this speech.’ “

 

There is a 13-minute TEDxSydney video from 

singer-songwriter Megan Washington on April 2014 titled Megan Washington: Why I live in mortal dread of public speaking.

 

At 7:54 she says that:

 

“Singing for me is sweet relief. It is the only time when I feel fluent. It is the only time when what comes out of my mouth is comprehensively exactly what I intended.”  

 

John Hendrickson wrote a long article titled What Joe Biden can’t bring himself to say in the January/February 2020 issue of The Atlantic. I blogged about it on April 18, 2020 in a post titled Joe Biden has a problem – he’s a mostly recovered stutterer. Then in 2023 there was a book by John Hendrickson titled Life on Delay – Making peace with a stutter. There is a 49-minute YouTube video interview of him from the Library of Congress [National Book Festival] titled Life on Delay: Making Peace with a Stutter with John Hendrickson. Sometimes it’s painful to watch.  At ~ 7:20 he says:

 

“Because of all the gears that are constantly turning in your head as a person who stutters, all the word switching, all of it’s like you’re … I think of it as like you’re trying to get to the other part of one of those rotating logs. You’re just trying to get there, you know, to the other side. That’s what it’s like getting through sentences as a person who stutters. So, it takes a lot of energy and it takes a lot of focus and many people who stutter are constantly trying to avoid these moments of repetitions and prolongations and blocks and they’re putting in other words, things like that.”  

 

There also is an article with a 28-minute podcast of John by J. D. Gray at the ASHA Leader on January 4, 2024 titled ASHA Voices: Author John Hendrickson on Stuttering, Disclosure, and ‘Life on Delay.’ The article links to two previous podcasts about stuttering.

 

The image was adapted from this one at Openclipart.

Living with a stutter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is it like to live with a stutter? There is an excellent brief article by Rachel Goodman at the US Cardiology Review on September 9, 2024 titled Big Girl Words. She is a cardiology fellow at Tufts Medical Center. Rachel says:

“I have smiled and waved a lot in my life, often related to my speech. I stutter. I am not nervous, hesitant, or unsure of myself. Rather, there is some neurological issue that is frankly far too complex for my understanding which leads to a repetition of sounds and blocked words.

It starts with a blockage in my throat and leads to squinting eyes and pursed lips in an attempt to force the words out, making it challenging for my breath to keep up with my voice. I can feel it coming before it happens and often have enough time or foresight to change my words to ones that will leave my mouth more smoothly.

While the embarrassment of the stutter has lessened with time and my fluency has increased with intensive speech therapy, the stutter will always be there. The deep guttural Gs and lip-smacking Ps will always be my hardest, but I’ve learned ways to compensate.

Experience has taught me to not let this speech impediment define who I am or what I do. It took time and motivation to get here. I have worked hard throughout my life to obtain some semblance of fluency, devoting countless hours to after-school speech therapy, week-long speech intensives during my time off, and practicing saying my name while sitting on the floor in front of a mirror on nights and weekends.

I am not a shy person but, because of my stutter, I often dread occasions that require public speaking: introductions, doing rounds in the hospital, reading out loud, and presenting at a podium….

Reflecting upon my experience as a trainee with a stutter, it has – perhaps paradoxically – taught me a lot about communication. Having a stutter has taught me to be thoughtful and to think ahead. I’ve learned how to perform under pressure and overcome embarrassment. In undergoing speech therapy, I’ve learned diaphragmatic breathing and how to manipulate my muscles to facilitate fluent speech; though the speech may sound slow, it may also come across as thoughtful and patient. Stuttering has taught me the importance of giving people grace instead of rushing to assumptions.”

 

The image was adapted from this one at Openclipart.

 

 

Students who stutter think that their college professors perceive them less positively than students who don’t stutter

 

How do students who stutter (and those who don’t) think that their college professors perceive them? The March 2021 issue of the Journal of Fluency Disorders contains an article by Danielle Werle and Courtney T. Byrd titled College professors’ perception of students who stutter and the impact on comfort approaching professors. They surveyed 246 adult students, half who stuttered and the other half who did not. Participants were asked to rank how they believed professors perceived them regarding sixteen traits on a scale ranging from zero to one hundred. Seven traits are positive: Bold, Bright, Calm, Competent, Intelligent, Open, Self-Assured. The other nine traits are negative: Aggressive, Dull, Incompetent, Mediocre, Nervous, Passive, Reticent, Self-conscious, Shy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 2 of the article listed the ranks for sixteen traits, as shown above in alphabetical order via a bar chart. For six traits indicated by asterisks (Incompetent, Nervous, Open, Self-assured, Self-conscious, and Shy) there were statistically significant differences between stutterers and non-stutterers. Four of those traits (Incompetent, Nervous, Self-conscious, and Shy)  are negative, and stutterers had higher rankings than non-stutterers. The other two, Open and Self-assured are positive and non-stutterers had higher rankings than stutterers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A second bar chart plots the differences in rank (stutterers minus non-stutterers). They rank as follows: Nervous* 21.41, Shy* 21.04, Self-conscious* 20.97, Reticent* 11.48, Incompetent* 10.55, Dull 7.54, Passive 6.07, Mediocre 4.87, Intelligent 1.09, Aggressive 1.06, Bright -1.33, Bold -4.67, Calm -9.92, Competent -10.6, Open* -13.31, Self-assured* -17.93. For Competent and Incompetent the absolute value of the difference is almost identical.     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The choice of traits for this survey has an obvious flaw. The analysis did not compare two obvious opposites – Competent and Incompetent. Examination of the bar chart reveals other sets of opposites (as indicated above): Aggressive and Passive, Bold and Shy, Bright and Dull or Intelligent , Calm and Nervous, Competent and Incompetent, and Self-Assured or Self-Conscious. An obvious way to do this is by flipping the scale over to compare Competent versus [100 – Incompetent]. A third bar chart shows the six sets of opposite traits together. There really are just nine independent traits. I found those sets described in a 2007 article in the Journal of Fluency Disorders (Volume 32, pages 297 to 309) by Sean P. MacKinnon et al that is titled Origins of the stuttering stereotype: Stereotype formation through anchoring adjustment. Their Table 1 has 25 items on semantic differential scales, including aggressive-passive, shy-bold, intelligent-dull, nervous-calm, and self-conscious – self-assured (but not competent -incompetent).

 

 What about impact on comfort when approaching professors? All students were asked a Yes/No question – whether they felt comfortable approaching their professor to discuss their performance on oral presentations. (Those who stutter also were asked some other questions). A logistic regression model for that Yes/No question found only the trait Self-assured had a significant coefficient for prediction. Their results section mentioned testing from the statistical problem of multicollinearity (when two related variables both are competing to predict a result). But that problem instead needed to be discussed back when the questions were chosen.

 

Fluent speech was a struggle for both Amanda Gordon and Brayden Harrington

 

Watch the YouTube video of poet Amanda Gordon reading ‘The Hill We Climb’ during the inauguration ceremony for President Biden. An article by Allison Slater Tate at Today on January 21, 2021 is titled Here’s what poet Amanda Gorman says about her speech and auditory issues.

 

On August 24, 2020 I had blogged about A touching two-minute speech at the Democratic National Convention given by Brayden Harrington. He also spoke on inauguration day, as is described in another article by N’dea Yancey-Bragg at USA Today on January 21, 2021 titled Teen who bonded with Biden over stutter delivers powerful rendition of JFK speech in inauguration special.

 

The Amazing Randi died last week

Last week we lost a great communicator. An obituary by Paul W. Valentine at the Washington Post on October 21, 2020 is titled James Randi, magician and stage artist devoted to debunking the paranormal, dies at 92. It noted that he had overcome a stammer and fear of public speaking. Another obituary by Joe Schwarcz at the McGill Office for Science and Society on October 22, 2020 is titled Bending Spoons and Bending Minds.

 

You can watch James Randi’s 2007 TED Talk titled Homeopathy, quackery, and fraud. There are lots of other videos of Mr. Randi. Two examples from James Randi Speaks on YouTube are on Problems with Miscommunication and The Compass Trick.   

 

A touching two-minute speech at the Democratic National Convention

I did not watch much of the Democratic National Convention. Later on I watched videos of the very polished acceptance speeches from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and Barrack Obama’s 20-minute one.

I had missed this one by 13 year-old Brayden Harrington though. Then I saw an article by John Hendrickson in The Atlantic titled Stuttering Through It. A year ago Mr. Hendrickson had interviewed Biden about his stutter in an another article titled What Joe Biden Can’t Bring Himself to Say.  

Joe Biden has a problem – he’s a mostly recovered stutterer

I am retired and considered by some to be “over the hill.” But I still am younger than either of our U.S. presidential candidates - Donald Trump (73) and Joe Biden (77). Both have been accused of being so old they are mentally deficient. If they had more common sense and less arrogance, then they might have decided it was time for someone younger to run the country.

We can expect to hear more in the near future about Biden’s supposed incompetence. On April 17, 2020 there was an article by Zachary Evans in the National Review titled Biden stumbles through televised interview on coronavirus response: ‘You know, there’s – during World War II, you know, where Roosevelt came up with a thing.’ On March 8, 2020 there was a Fox News video titled Giuliani tears into Biden: ‘The man has something wrong with him.’ What’s wrong with Joe? It’s simple - he stutters.

There is a long article by John Hendrickson in The Atlantic on January/February 2020 titled What Joe Biden can’t bring himself to say. Another article by Jack Brewster on March 19, 2020 in Newsweek is titled Joe Biden’s stutter explains a lot about how he speaks. I should know – I have one too.

Biden’s stutter will make him appear less competent in a debate than Donald Trump’s glib stream of lies. But as some ads once said, when the White House phone rings at 3:00 AM I would rather have Joe answer it than Donald.   

I don’t think that was me

After a decade of blogging, I’m used to getting a variety of emails. But one recent sequence took me by surprise. That person asked if I recalled having commented about dyslexia on a particular web site, and then having had that comment deleted by the owner. (He has his own blog about dyslexia). He said his comments on that other web site were made below mine and also were deleted. I did not recall ever having either been to that web site or even having been very interested in that topic. There is no label for dyslexia on this blog, and a Google search found no mention of the words dyslexia or dyslexic. (There is a label for stuttering though).   

Every week I get several public relations emails touting forthcoming or recently published books. Some even offer to provide me with a review copy, or to set up an interview. The polite ones have an Unsubscribe feature, which I use quite often. For those that do not, I sometimes reply including the graphic shown above.

Stuttering is a royal pain

Early last month I saw the historical drama, The King’s Speech, at The Flicks here in Boise. It is an impressive movie, particularly considering the relatively low budget (around $16 million). The plot is about King George VI overcoming his stutter (or stammer) with the help of an unorthodox speech therapist who also becomes his friend. 

Late last month I was pleasantly surprised to see it win four Academy Awards (Oscars) for:

Best Picture
Best Leading Actor (Colin Firth)
Best Director (Tom Hooper)
Best Original Screenplay (David Seidler)

The award for Best Picture was particularly surprising, because another nominee was Inception, a $160 million science-fiction action film. It starred both Leonardo DiCaprio and  Michael Caine, and seemed a much more obvious choice.

The King’s Speech was unusual for offering a sympathetic portrayal of a stutterer. More commonly in movies that problem is portrayed for comic effect, as in A Fish Called Wanda where Michael Palin played the stammering Ken Pile. Palin’s father had a stammer. 

You can find out more about stuttering from the National Stuttering Association and the Stuttering Foundation.

Stuttering and Richard Thompson

I did not realize that the critically acclaimed singer-songwriter and guitarist Richard Thompson had a problem with stuttering when speaking in public. Back in the early 1980’s I saw him headline the Ann Arbor Folk Festival. He walked onstage with just his acoustic guitar, started singing, and held a theater audience spellbound for over an hour. That day no stutter was evident in his remarks between songs. Thompson’s name appears in this list of famous people with speech disorders.

Recently I saw an article in Performing Musician magazine that mentioned his stutter. I also found a BBC TV documentary about him called A Solitary Life. At ~3:00 minutes into the first segment of the YouTube video you can hear his stutter come out, prompted by the high stress of being followed around by a camera crew. Thompson played lead guitar for Fairport Convention, and then began writing songs for them. Later he left them, and his wife Linda sang while he played guitar. Eventually Richard began singing.

The Stuttering Home Page is one of the best online sources for information about stuttering. Pamela A. Mertz writes a blog about stuttering called Make Room for the Stuttering that recently passed the landmark of 200 posts.

You can find many songs by Richard Thompson on YouTube. Fairport Convention play Meet on the Ledge here. Linda Thompson sings the title song from the album I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight here. Richard sings 1952 Vincent Black Lightning here. He and Jo-El Sonnier perform the break-up polka song, Tear Stained Letter, here. Sonnier also has a Cajun nightmare video version here. Bonnie Raitt sings Dimming of the Day here.

The photo by Kevin Smith shows Richard Thompson playing at Croperdy, during the 2005 Fairport Convention reunion.

Cluttering is not the same as stuttering

In my previous post on filler words I mentioned that some people have a problem with speaking smoothly that is called cluttering. I linked to the Stuttering Foundation’s brochure on cluttering which begins by stating that:

“Like stuttering, cluttering is a fluency disorder, but the two disorders are not the same. Cluttering involves excessive breaks in the normal flow of speech that seem to result from disorganized speech planning, talking too fast or in spurts, or simply being unsure of what one wants to say. By contrast, the person who stutters typically knows exactly what he or she wants to say but is temporarily unable to say it. To make matters even more confusing, since cluttering is not well known, many who clutter are described by themselves or others as ‘stuttering.’ Also, and equally confusing, cluttering often occurs along with stuttering.”

Jenny Loehr shows the fundamental difference between the two with this cartoon.

In the March 2009 issue of the ASHA Leader Judith Maginnis Kuster discussed cluttering in her article titled: Cluttering: The Other Fluency Disorder. She gives a lot of useful web links. (I got to the Jenny Loehr cartoon from her list). She also links to the International Cluttering Association (ICA).

Ms. Kuster also links to an article where Joseph Dewey describes his personal experiences with cluttering. Mr. Dewey wrote a guide at Amazon.com:So you’d like to...um...stop...you know…like…using filler words. He also runs an online Yahoo support group mentioned on the ICA web site.