Monday 10 August 2020

clientes com distรบrbios e atrasos na fala

The latest instalment of This American Life had a particular resonant first act that really lingered and prodded in ways that I was not quite expecting.  Composer and musician Jerome Ellis became a joyful rule-breaker for a captivated audience and gave with his performance piece a real object lesson on the reasonable accommodation of time and pacing that most of us don’t spare a thought for lest we’re able to indulge our impatience and cast aspersions on others for being too slow.
Introduced by way of a Brazilian law that provides a half-price relief for mobile subscribers who are diagnosed with a speech impediment—a severe stutter like Ellis has, the state government tried to make allowances for the normalised and preferred fluency that none of us has by degrees. While I don’t exactly stammer and don’t pretend to come from the same place experientially, I felt I could relate by getting annoyed when one supplies (or tries to) the elusive word too quickly or finishes my sentences for me—and I know it’s just meant as a kindness whether in English or in my non-native German when I struggle, which is usually—and then not knowing if it’s worth the effort to finish one’s thought and growing by degrees a bit more taciturn. Our temporal expectations can be impositions just like any other but also an opportunity for exchange.