Speaker 1: Hey, March is tripod month, my friend, and you know
Speaker 1: what that means. Yes, that means it's time to let
Speaker 1: people know about your favorite podcasts, just to share the
Speaker 1: sheer joy of podcast listening. That's right, it's t r
Speaker 1: y pod. Still in nascent industry. A lot of people
Speaker 1: don't know what podcasts are and helps everybody out if
Speaker 1: you would go out and just say, hey, family member,
Speaker 1: who I see it? Thanksgiving once a year? Right, you
Speaker 1: should try out this thing called a podcast. Here's what
Speaker 1: they are. Here's a cool show you should try, and
Speaker 1: here's how to get it. Yeah, and it doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be our show, just any podcast you like in
Speaker 1: general that you think someone else would like, just share it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So get on board the dry pod train. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Stuff you should know from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's here is always So
Speaker 1: it's stuff you should know. Stuff you should You should
Speaker 1: have said that in a British accent. It's stuff you
Speaker 1: should know. Hey, how was that? It was great? You're
Speaker 1: a regular rich little remember the arrest development little subplot
Speaker 1: where Charlie Starren. It was thought to be a British spy.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, what was for British eyes only? Yeah? But
Speaker 1: what was um? The name of her character, mr F
Speaker 1: mr F. That's right, that's right. Anyw I had some
Speaker 1: like they said that every time. Right, it was pretty funny.
Speaker 1: She's great. Yeah, she was pretty lady, funny, smart, Yeah,
Speaker 1: good actor? What else? That's all I got on her?
Speaker 1: She can macrom Oh really, I don't know. I just assume. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is after a great start. Uh uh is it's unusual?
Speaker 1: Odd even you could say that. You suggested I say
Speaker 1: the intro in a British accent because we're talking about
Speaker 1: foreign accents today, Chuck, that's right, it was COI mm hmm.
Speaker 1: I see now that makes sense. Yes, and we're specifically
Speaker 1: not talking about um. There's a thing sometimes that certain
Speaker 1: people do when they meet someone with a an accent
Speaker 1: different than their own, where they accidentally or sometimes purposely,
Speaker 1: adopted momentarily. Yes, it's called code switching. My mom has
Speaker 1: done this before that I remember. It happened when I
Speaker 1: was a kid. My brother and I thought it was
Speaker 1: so funny. Yeah. Yeah, And it seems like it's usually
Speaker 1: apparent of an embarrassed child. Sure, um and is there
Speaker 1: an explanation behind it? Yeah? Yeah? So? Um so this
Speaker 1: is from what I understand, This is the point. Right. So,
Speaker 1: our accents are extremely personal. They're part of like us individually,
Speaker 1: but they also signal our membership in different groups. Right. So,
Speaker 1: like a farmer is gonna talk differently from a stockbroker,
Speaker 1: and a farmer from UH, Georgia is going to talk
Speaker 1: a lot differently than a stockbroker from UH Portland, Oregon,
Speaker 1: right because it's the other stock market seat. They thought
Speaker 1: I was gonna say New York. Nope. Um. So when
Speaker 1: we when we code switch, when we meet other people
Speaker 1: and take on their their way of talking, it's called
Speaker 1: code switching. And I think it's a way of signaling, hey,
Speaker 1: I we have something in comment. I don't want you
Speaker 1: to be distracted by Yeah my my overalls with no
Speaker 1: shirt on are distracting enough. I don't want you to
Speaker 1: be distracted by my accent too. So I think it
Speaker 1: is a way of saying, like, hey, I'm, i'm, I'm,
Speaker 1: we have something in common. The thing is, accents are
Speaker 1: such a part of group identity that if you do
Speaker 1: that in front of some other members of your group,
Speaker 1: whether it's your family or your friends or whatever, they're
Speaker 1: gonna tease you. They are going to tease you, guaranteed.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons why is because what they're doing,
Speaker 1: consciously or otherwise is maintaining the borders of their own
Speaker 1: group's identity. They're saying, don't put on airs, don't think
Speaker 1: you're fancy, don't think you're just like that guy, You're
Speaker 1: one of us, and and making fun of somebody who
Speaker 1: adopts someone else's accent as a way of doing that,
Speaker 1: it's a way of maintaining group divisions and borders where really,
Speaker 1: when you do kind of adopt someone else's accent, I
Speaker 1: think one of the things that you are doing is
Speaker 1: trying to make the foreigner, the stranger feel more comfortable.
Speaker 1: And having met your mom, I guarantee that's what she
Speaker 1: was doing. Well. I just remember the only one I
Speaker 1: remember specifically, and you know, you just said these random
Speaker 1: eildhood moments that sort of stick with you, was we
Speaker 1: were in Florida and we were talking with uh, an
Speaker 1: Irish woman. I believe she may have been from England,
Speaker 1: but I think she was Irish. And the other thing too, is,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't. I don't think my mom had
Speaker 1: probably talked to a lot of Irish people at that point.
Speaker 1: You know, she's from West Tennessee and moved to Georgia.
Speaker 1: We didn't have Irish people all over the place. She
Speaker 1: wasn't super well traveled back then, although she is much
Speaker 1: more now. Um so it was probably a bit novel
Speaker 1: to her. And I remember very specifically, the woman said
Speaker 1: something about going to Disney, uh instead of Disney World,
Speaker 1: and my mom said, she got kind of proper and
Speaker 1: she says, you know, we haven't been to Disney yet.
Speaker 1: And I remember my brother and I just thought that
Speaker 1: was so funny instead of saying Disney World. Did you
Speaker 1: guys make fun of her of the woman? No, I
Speaker 1: don't think so. We may have laughed a little um
Speaker 1: under our breath, but I mean, I don't think we.
Speaker 1: I don't think we even teased her. I'm teasing her
Speaker 1: now a bit, but um, I don't think like we
Speaker 1: made fun of her. Really. I think we just kind of,
Speaker 1: like my brother and I want to do, very quietly,
Speaker 1: looked at each other and in that way that brothers do, right,
Speaker 1: and then talk to each other like the kids and
Speaker 1: escape from which mountain? Yeah, or they telepathic? Uh, but
Speaker 1: it's funny. I was listening to um the Great Judge
Speaker 1: John Hodgman podcast with our pal John in Class Jesse
Speaker 1: Thorne Bailiff Jesse, and they had an actual case a
Speaker 1: few weeks ago that was very funny where this this
Speaker 1: mom um does this on purpose. She's a trained actor
Speaker 1: and loves to put on accents when she goes to places,
Speaker 1: and the daughter was just she took her to the
Speaker 1: uh Internet court and was just like stop doing this,
Speaker 1: like you've got to stop doing this. And the mom's
Speaker 1: whole thing, she was very just fun and whimsical and
Speaker 1: having a lot of fun with it. So it was
Speaker 1: really hard to to rule against her. But I think
Speaker 1: Jaman ultimately did rule against her. He's tough, but well,
Speaker 1: I think his whole thing was, like, you know, I
Speaker 1: think he ruled partially in her favor, like you gotta
Speaker 1: let him know where you're from. And you can't do
Speaker 1: it to like waiters and service people because their job
Speaker 1: is to like take your dumb jokes and and have
Speaker 1: a stiff upper lip about it, and it just kind
Speaker 1: of makes their job harder if they think maybe you're
Speaker 1: making fun of them, and you know, like you may
Speaker 1: not realize the unintended consequence of this is somebody may
Speaker 1: feel uncomfortable that they have to put up with this. Wow,
Speaker 1: that was It was a really serious turn at the
Speaker 1: end there, you know it did? I mean, you know
Speaker 1: that what's great about that show is it's they're funny cases,
Speaker 1: but he adjudicates seriously. I think, well, yeah, and then
Speaker 1: Jesse always shoots his gun off at the end. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh So, anyway, I just thought it was pretty weird
Speaker 1: that this article came up and then that episode had
Speaker 1: just aired. But that's different than what we were talking
Speaker 1: about totally. Like I started saying, this is not that
Speaker 1: at all. This is a legitimate, super rare. This reminded
Speaker 1: me of alien hand syndrome and its rarity, um because
Speaker 1: I've seen different numbers, but the most I've seen is
Speaker 1: about a hundred and fifty um described official cases of
Speaker 1: foreign accent syndrome. Right, That's that's super rare for sure.
Speaker 1: And what makes it different from somebody taking on the
Speaker 1: affect or dialect or accident of somebody else. Someone's taking
Speaker 1: the piss, right, this is this is where you you
Speaker 1: can't stop. It's involuntary. Yeah, and you know it sounds weird.
Speaker 1: It's an ecdotic, and you just wanted to like poke
Speaker 1: the person who's doing that in the next to be
Speaker 1: like what are you doing there? But if you really
Speaker 1: started to dig into the actual cases, it's sad and
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of cases. Yeah, Because again,
Speaker 1: your accent, what you sound like, makes up a part
Speaker 1: of your personality. So if you are if it, if
Speaker 1: it changes on you involuntarily, it can be quite traumatic
Speaker 1: for some people. You could have an identity crisis of sorts. Yeah. So, um,
Speaker 1: I guess we should just go ahead and talk about
Speaker 1: a couple of cases so people know what we're talking about. Um.
Speaker 1: The first one mentioned in our own article is really
Speaker 1: interesting for a few reasons. Uh. And it's the most
Speaker 1: recent case that's documented. Um. I'm sorry it's not the
Speaker 1: most recent, but it is fairly recent. Woman named Lisa
Speaker 1: Ala mia Um. She had jaw surgery because of an overbite,
Speaker 1: and then when she came out of surgery, even though
Speaker 1: she was from Texas and had never been to England,
Speaker 1: she spoke with a British accent and she's like, right,
Speaker 1: bloody hell and h any way, I I need our
Speaker 1: British listeners right in and tell me how how good
Speaker 1: my British accented. Okay, well, I'm known on the show
Speaker 1: for doing the bad accent, so I'm glad you're taking
Speaker 1: up now. Yours are good. I don't know minor. They
Speaker 1: verge on decent at times. Well there's carto iss and stereotypical,
Speaker 1: but really really good continuous stereotypical versions of accents. Uh.
Speaker 1: So she woke up had that accent in her husband
Speaker 1: and three kids. I thought it was a joke. Um,
Speaker 1: she had only been outside the country to go to
Speaker 1: Mexico and it was a real thing called foreign exit syndrome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she'd never been to England. She apparently probably had seen
Speaker 1: British people on TV kind of thing. But her case
Speaker 1: actually is the opposite of what I was saying. She
Speaker 1: was apparently, um, quite shy before, and now she has
Speaker 1: something to talk about a conversation opener. I guess she's
Speaker 1: a little more chatty than before. Yeah, it is. It's
Speaker 1: it's the opposite of of some other people who have
Speaker 1: really experienced a crisis. As a results, she's like, well
Speaker 1: I saw him British. Now I guess I should talk
Speaker 1: more than before. So she sounds like a drunk cockney
Speaker 1: chimney sweep pretty much. And she does sound cockney to me. Really,
Speaker 1: I didn't hear I didn't see this one on YouTube,
Speaker 1: so yeah, we should say. You know, this is kind
Speaker 1: of like optical illusions. It's one thing to talk about it,
Speaker 1: you need to actually go see and hear these people talking. Um.
Speaker 1: If you just look up Lisa Alamia A l A
Speaker 1: M I A and you will find plenty of interviews
Speaker 1: with her. Um, she's she's, like you said, fairly recent.
Speaker 1: There's one that's a quite a famous case, maybe the
Speaker 1: most famous because it was the one that put foreign
Speaker 1: accent syndrome on the map, even though it was before
Speaker 1: the term was coined. Yeah, this one had had a
Speaker 1: much darker turn, um because it was during World War Two.
Speaker 1: A Norwegian woman named Astrid suffered injury. Um. And the
Speaker 1: ironies here are really sad. She suffered a brain injury
Speaker 1: from shrapnel from a German bomb and a bombing raid,
Speaker 1: and then when she came to she had a German accent. Right,
Speaker 1: very not fun for her, No, because the Germans were
Speaker 1: occupying Norway at the time, right, so people she didn't
Speaker 1: really know, we're like, oh, hey German spy, Yeah you
Speaker 1: want some milk? No milk for you? Yeah, she was shunned. Um.
Speaker 1: She couldn't even speak German, but she had that accent
Speaker 1: and was obviously very distraught by this, and she went
Speaker 1: to a neurologist. Name your Erman, Monrad Crohne. Nice job,
Speaker 1: it's a great name. And um he coined the first
Speaker 1: term uh for this, which is uh this prosody, which
Speaker 1: is a prosody is like the tone and rhythm of
Speaker 1: your speech, and the prefixed discs obviously is like abnormal
Speaker 1: or ill um And that didn't catch on too well.
Speaker 1: It didn't, but as we'll see, he kind of nailed
Speaker 1: what the problem was because you know, the the the
Speaker 1: non grammatical parts of speech, the prosody or what is affected.
Speaker 1: When you have foreign accent syndrome. You you have what
Speaker 1: appears to be a foreign accent, but you're usually your vocabulary,
Speaker 1: your syntax, your grammar remains unchanged. It's all the little
Speaker 1: nuances that make up your accent or your intonation or
Speaker 1: the rhythm of your speech that are affected and has changed.
Speaker 1: So this prosody is actually like the perfect name for
Speaker 1: the syndrome. Yeah, but foreign accent syndrome is way more
Speaker 1: catchy and that it's sexy in uh, neurologist named Harry
Speaker 1: Whittaker came up with that um so A Whittaker coined
Speaker 1: it in the eighties. Uh, I think two was when
Speaker 1: he coined that official term, right, and he he was
Speaker 1: a neuro linguist who did some pretty serious research into
Speaker 1: foreign accent syndrome. He actually came up with a four
Speaker 1: point criteria for diagnosing it. And the number one is
Speaker 1: that the accent has to be considered by the patient,
Speaker 1: the people the patient knows, and the researcher the doctor
Speaker 1: to be to sound like a foreign accent, right for
Speaker 1: pretty straightfor from what they are. Yeah, well that's number
Speaker 1: number Two. It has to be different from the patient's
Speaker 1: former prosody, noticeably different. Number three it has to be
Speaker 1: related to central nervous system damage and this one has
Speaker 1: come under fire under the last few years. And then
Speaker 1: four it can't be related to a patient's ability to
Speaker 1: speak a foreign language already. Right, So there's actually a condition,
Speaker 1: it's astounding to me. It's called bilingual aphasia, or there's
Speaker 1: also polyglott aphasia. And apparently if you suffer a stroke
Speaker 1: or brain injury or some other trauma insult to your
Speaker 1: central nervous system, and you know, more than one language.
Speaker 1: You may completely lose the ability to speak one language
Speaker 1: and completely retain the ability to speak the other. That's
Speaker 1: how decentralized our language processes in the brain. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: because that's one of the factors in for UH accent
Speaker 1: syndrome is you could it's not like UH in a
Speaker 1: case where you might have a stroke and lose the
Speaker 1: ability to speak like, you still can speak in perfect
Speaker 1: dialect whatever that dialect is as far as being you know,
Speaker 1: articulate and coherent. Oh right, right, yeah, yeah, so you're
Speaker 1: you're yeah, exactly, You're not like slurring your speech. You
Speaker 1: just sound different and like a foreign person saying the
Speaker 1: same words would. Right, Oh, gotcha. Okay, So there's this
Speaker 1: four point diagnosis criteria that's kind of been deconstructed over
Speaker 1: the years. Um. But the problem with foreign accent syndrome it's,
Speaker 1: like you said, Um, there's been a hundred, maybe a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty cases, So it's just totally up in
Speaker 1: the air as to like how did diagnose it, what
Speaker 1: qualifies as that? And we'll talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: how scientists have dug into it thus far after this break,
Speaker 1: so chuck forign accent syndrome. It's kind of all over
Speaker 1: the place right now. Right You've got um Lisa Lamia
Speaker 1: Um who woke up from jawl surgery with it. Apparently
Speaker 1: people who have strokes can um can suffer from foreign
Speaker 1: accent syndrome. Uh. And I actually saw one case where
Speaker 1: your foreign accent syndrome and one patient who suffered a
Speaker 1: stroke was cured by a second stroke elsewhere in the brain.
Speaker 1: So we have like it's very tough to predict what's
Speaker 1: going to happen when foreign accent syndrome does come about.
Speaker 1: And you know, there's been people from Japan who developed
Speaker 1: Korean act sense, or there have been people from Scotland
Speaker 1: who developed South African accents. Um. It's it's kind of
Speaker 1: everywhere and all over. Yeah, you can. One of the
Speaker 1: other causes. It can be from the onset of MS
Speaker 1: from multiple sclerosis. UM. This one woman that we'll talk
Speaker 1: about in more details suffered from chronic migraines but had
Speaker 1: a migraine attack so severe that it it's spurred this
Speaker 1: and we'll get to her. But all of these in
Speaker 1: a bucket from some sort of trauma or an event
Speaker 1: are called uh neurogenic type. And for a long time
Speaker 1: they used to think that was the only way that
Speaker 1: you could get for an excellent syndrome, right, because I
Speaker 1: remember that Harry Whittaker two criteria specifically says it has
Speaker 1: to be related to central nervous system damage. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: there's another kind called psychogenic, also non organic or functional
Speaker 1: or psychosomatic. But um, one of the leading experts said
Speaker 1: that they prefer psychogenic. Uh. He said because quote this
Speaker 1: term has the advantage of stating positively based on an
Speaker 1: exploration of its causes, that the disorder is a manifestation
Speaker 1: of psychic psychological dis equilibrium like anxiety depression, personality disorder,
Speaker 1: or conversion reaction in quote um, and you know we're
Speaker 1: talking about could be bipolar disorder, it could be some
Speaker 1: other form of mental illness. And UM, this really kind
Speaker 1: of rocked. I mean, it's not a huge community studying this,
Speaker 1: but the people that do are obviously super fascinated by it,
Speaker 1: and it kind of rocked their world when they found
Speaker 1: out that someone that had no head injury, no stroke,
Speaker 1: or anything like that would could have something like this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So they developed UM first was neurogenic, then they developed psychogenic,
Speaker 1: and then there's actually a third one now it's mixed.
Speaker 1: So apparently it can actually be from a psychological issue
Speaker 1: that possibly could arise from, say a brain lesion. So
Speaker 1: it's both of them together working to create this foreign
Speaker 1: accent syndrome and definitely psychogenic. The psychogenic version of foreign
Speaker 1: accent syndrome differs tremendously from the neurogenic in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways, and number one is the psychogenic tends to
Speaker 1: clear up and accompanies say like a psychotic break or
Speaker 1: a manic episode or something like that UM, And as
Speaker 1: the episode wanes or goes away or clears up, so
Speaker 1: too does the foreign accent syndrome. That is not the
Speaker 1: case with neurogenic. With neurogenic, they have no cure whatsoever,
Speaker 1: and basically the only treatment that they can come up
Speaker 1: with is UM through speech therapy, where speech language pathologists
Speaker 1: basically retrained you to talk the way you did before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's also, uh, the neurogenic is also much more common
Speaker 1: out of the cases I think it's about are from
Speaker 1: some sort of neurological damage, right, So what does that
Speaker 1: leave for to percent or unless I guess you're accounting
Speaker 1: for the new super odd one that is could be both. Um.
Speaker 1: One of the more famous cases that kind of demonstrated
Speaker 1: that psychogenic f A S was an actual thing. UM
Speaker 1: happened here in America. There's a woman in her mid
Speaker 1: thirties who had a history of schizophrenia and her family
Speaker 1: and she was brought to the e R after attacking
Speaker 1: her mom's landlady. Yeah, this one's the most recent case actually,
Speaker 1: and she um. She she believed the landlady was practicing
Speaker 1: voodoo on her against her, and she attacked the woman.
Speaker 1: UM and throughout all this, during this episode, she had
Speaker 1: taken on a British accent and taking a family history,
Speaker 1: they found that number one, she had schizophrenia or family
Speaker 1: She was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a result of this incident,
Speaker 1: but that she had had similar instances before and during
Speaker 1: these she had spoken with the British accent. Yeah. I wonder,
Speaker 1: I didn't see anything in there about her if she
Speaker 1: like had a I mean that another personality. Is that
Speaker 1: multiple personality disorder? I don't believe. So that's not what
Speaker 1: I took from it, because that would make sense, you know,
Speaker 1: if you have a just a British personality that came
Speaker 1: out that's violent maybe or something. Yeah, well, I mean
Speaker 1: we remember we I think we've done one on schizophrenia before,
Speaker 1: haven't we. I don't know, haven't we. We definitely did
Speaker 1: one on dissociative personality disorder UM, which was just absolutely fascinating.
Speaker 1: But I was I like you, I kind of noticed, like, hey,
Speaker 1: what about multiple personality? So it doesn't it seems like
Speaker 1: something that would be right up that alley. I'm sure
Speaker 1: they've looked into that, but apparently apparently that's not part
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah. Um, another case that I said we
Speaker 1: were going to get to those, This one is really
Speaker 1: weird um and super sad. This woman named Sarah Calwill
Speaker 1: in England. She is the one that had the migraine
Speaker 1: that set it off. And uh, this one is super
Speaker 1: odd because she's an English woman who now has a
Speaker 1: Chinese accent. I mean just straight up sounds Chinese and
Speaker 1: like broken English Chinese right right, So she sounds like
Speaker 1: a native UM. I think Man Mandarin speaker is probably
Speaker 1: what we're thinking of. Who um is speaking English? And
Speaker 1: if you weren't looking like you would expect to see,
Speaker 1: say maybe like a middle aged Chinese woman. Uh when
Speaker 1: you looked at the at the video and no, it's
Speaker 1: like I don't know, late late to mid thirties. Um,
Speaker 1: Caucasian woman, native born English speaker. Who. Um, and she's
Speaker 1: who I was thinking of when I was saying for
Speaker 1: some people, is is a really big problem because it's
Speaker 1: presented a big crisis for her identity. She said that
Speaker 1: she can't look in the mirror while she's speaking any longer.
Speaker 1: She just doesn't feel like herself anymore. It's really hit
Speaker 1: her hard. Yeah, I mean she her case is really sad.
Speaker 1: It was I think two thousand and ten when she
Speaker 1: was diagnosed after this migraine incident and in um she
Speaker 1: couldn't work anymore. Uh, and she she has she has
Speaker 1: a lot and more issues going on than just the
Speaker 1: speech with these uh migraines that have come on. She's
Speaker 1: um got a whole range of physical problems that she's
Speaker 1: had to stop work. She's in a wheelchair. Even though
Speaker 1: her limbs completely work, her brain basically can't tell her
Speaker 1: limbs to do what they should do. So um from migraines. Yeah,
Speaker 1: from I think these really extreme migraines. I think they
Speaker 1: even likened it to like having a stroke. They were
Speaker 1: so severe. Um. So she's had to sell her house,
Speaker 1: and I think her husband is afflicted with something too.
Speaker 1: It's just a really really sad case. But um, you know,
Speaker 1: you can there's all kinds of interviews with her, and
Speaker 1: it's just so strange to hear that accent coming out
Speaker 1: of uh, this white lady. It is from what I gather,
Speaker 1: she'd be like, yeah, well, imagine how strange it feels
Speaker 1: coming out of you. Oh yeah, you know. And you know,
Speaker 1: I saw videos where they would sit down and play her.
Speaker 1: Uh and before I looked up further that she was
Speaker 1: having even more troubled times, it seemed like she was
Speaker 1: getting a little better throughout the interview through therapy because
Speaker 1: they were playing her. One of the things they do
Speaker 1: is they play old recordings of herself and she would
Speaker 1: sit down and listen to them and try and mimic it,
Speaker 1: and um, which kind of brought up one of my
Speaker 1: questions is can you even mimic an accent? Like you
Speaker 1: know people can fake an accent, Like can you even
Speaker 1: do that? Uh? And I didn't get an answer on that,
Speaker 1: but um, then you're just mimicking an accent your entire
Speaker 1: life too, even if you could you know. So that's
Speaker 1: problematic on its own. But um, it seemed like she
Speaker 1: was getting a little bit better in that interview, but
Speaker 1: apparently not. It's really sad, Yeah it is. I mean,
Speaker 1: like it's bad enough you've got migraines and then to
Speaker 1: have a crisis of identity. Yeah, it's yeah, not fair.
Speaker 1: So one of the other things it's, um really troubling
Speaker 1: is you can't just just go to a neurologist and
Speaker 1: get it cleared up. Um. They're a whole range of
Speaker 1: doctors that you'll probably see along the way, including a neurologist.
Speaker 1: Um you talked about a speech language pathologist. You might
Speaker 1: go to a clinical psychologist to deal with the fallout
Speaker 1: from everything. Uh, maybe a neuro psychologist, maybe a radiologist.
Speaker 1: You might see you know, six and eight doctors and
Speaker 1: still not get anywhere, right because I can't do a
Speaker 1: lot for you. We don't know how to treat strokes
Speaker 1: very well. And once damage has has occurred in the brain,
Speaker 1: it can be pretty tough, if not impossible, to reverse
Speaker 1: that damage. Right, it's permanently damaged. Um. So yeah, the
Speaker 1: the idea that you're you've now gotten a foreign accent.
Speaker 1: They're probably like, that's kind of the least of your words.
Speaker 1: You just had a massive stroke or a huge head
Speaker 1: injury or something like that. But what it's revealed to
Speaker 1: them is not that there's this huge mystery, and we
Speaker 1: we have kind of played into it a little bit
Speaker 1: by not revealing this from the outset. But you you,
Speaker 1: as a patient with foreign accent syndrome, it didn't hit
Speaker 1: your head and wake up with the foreign accent. It's
Speaker 1: all in the ear of the beholder. The whole idea
Speaker 1: that there is a foreign accent syndrome is as the
Speaker 1: way that it stated is false, and we'll talk about
Speaker 1: that after this break. Okay, Chuck, we're back. So I
Speaker 1: thought I heard you draw in a breath right before
Speaker 1: we bro That might have been did you have something
Speaker 1: to say? Yeah, I think I have a little trouble
Speaker 1: wrapping my head around this whole idea that it's only
Speaker 1: in the ear of the person, because if you know
Speaker 1: that lady clearly has a Chinese accent, it's not oh,
Speaker 1: I'm just hearing it that way. So they've actually been
Speaker 1: studies where they've played a video clip of her, audio
Speaker 1: clip of a person with foreign accent syndrome to different
Speaker 1: people and said, you know, where do you think this
Speaker 1: person is from? And the same person will get tens
Speaker 1: of different answers out of tens of different people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean that makes sense in some cases,
Speaker 1: I think, But I don't see how anyone could hear
Speaker 1: this woman and say she sounds British to me, right, well, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: she she definitely doesn't sound Bridge. But that's the point.
Speaker 1: She sounds Chinese, but she's not actually speaking in a
Speaker 1: Chinese accent. She didn't hit her head and wake up
Speaker 1: with a Chinese accent. What happened was she got these
Speaker 1: series of migraines, probably had some sort of stroke, and
Speaker 1: a region of her brain that controls the really intricate
Speaker 1: process of prosody, of making your tongue do certain things
Speaker 1: to intonate an accent, certain words in certain ways that
Speaker 1: make up your accent and your dialect. Overall that got damaged,
Speaker 1: and so now she can't control it in the way
Speaker 1: she used to before. It comes out sounding differently. And
Speaker 1: to you, somebody who has heard people speak in a
Speaker 1: Chinese accent before, it sounds like a Chinese accent. That's
Speaker 1: the difference. Yeah, so they don't get that. What I
Speaker 1: do get though, is we take second nature just when
Speaker 1: we open our mouth we talk. We don't realize the
Speaker 1: complex series of events that's going on to make your
Speaker 1: voice come out the way it does. So you know
Speaker 1: you're you're well in the brain, they think, um, and
Speaker 1: again the mysteries of the brain, they're there. What how
Speaker 1: you create speeches really complex and involves all kind of
Speaker 1: areas of the brain, but UH specifically damaged in the
Speaker 1: left hemisphere and the cerebral artery they know a lot
Speaker 1: of times can cause foreign accent syndrome. But when you're speaking,
Speaker 1: you're using your tongue, you're using your lips, your jaw, uh,
Speaker 1: your larynx, and the way all these things combine and
Speaker 1: who you are UH is gonna make you have and
Speaker 1: we should do one on accents period. But um, it's
Speaker 1: gonna control how your speech comes out. So and the
Speaker 1: you know, the one example they use in here is
Speaker 1: if you know you have a little too much to
Speaker 1: drink those you know, you might lose some of that
Speaker 1: muscle control and you might slow your words or talk
Speaker 1: funny or differently. So that's a pretty pretty basic way
Speaker 1: of understanding it. But um, I know, vowels are are
Speaker 1: sort of a big deal when it comes to foreign
Speaker 1: accent syndrome. Yeah, if you if you say ad and
Speaker 1: stay a um, or you substitute consonants like R for L. Right,
Speaker 1: so you're um, you know, uh, what's that? What were
Speaker 1: they singing jingle bells on? Um? Oh? No? Deck the
Speaker 1: halls on a Christmas story? Ra. Right. So if you
Speaker 1: were a Caucasian English speaker and that you damaged your
Speaker 1: brain in a way that the the part of your
Speaker 1: brain responsible for forming l's now formed ours instead. To
Speaker 1: other English speakers who had heard um native Chinese speakers,
Speaker 1: you would sound like you had a Chinese accent, because
Speaker 1: that's what people who speak Chinese do when they're speaking English.
Speaker 1: So you didn't actually adopt a Chinese accent. You're just
Speaker 1: creating sounds in the same way that somebody who was
Speaker 1: a native Chinese speaker would. Yeah, I mean, I see
Speaker 1: what they're getting at with all this. To me, it's
Speaker 1: a little bit splitting hairs. I think that's what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to say. I think the difference is this chuck
Speaker 1: with your your accent, your native accent, your native dialect
Speaker 1: is the result of your exposure to your environment right lifelong,
Speaker 1: all the people around you, all the stuff you've learned,
Speaker 1: all the things you've heard. It creates your dialect. Right
Speaker 1: when you suffer foreign accent syndrome, your dialect, your brain
Speaker 1: is damage so that you can't produce that anymore, and
Speaker 1: you just kind of haphazardly producing something else you don't
Speaker 1: actually follow. So, like if you took uh Sarah cal
Speaker 1: Calwill's language and had her read a passage from a book,
Speaker 1: and then you had a native Chinese speaker, typical accented
Speaker 1: Mandarin speaker read that same passage, it would not be
Speaker 1: the exact same thing. There'd be all sorts of derivations
Speaker 1: and deviations from that normal Mandarin accent because Sarah Colwell's
Speaker 1: brain was damaged in a certain way that makes it
Speaker 1: a totally unique accent. Yeah, I get that, but that
Speaker 1: happens within the Mandarin accent between people too. You're not
Speaker 1: letting this one. Just don't get it. One thing I
Speaker 1: do get is that there's no like. And this is
Speaker 1: probably what's so frustrating, or one of the things so
Speaker 1: frustrating is it's not like they wake up with a
Speaker 1: new cultural identity either, I mean, this woman still wants
Speaker 1: to have her tea and biscuits every afternoon, but when
Speaker 1: she says that, she says it with Chuck would call
Speaker 1: it a Chinese accent. A neurologist would say, well, you're
Speaker 1: just hearing that right, Uh So you know, it's like
Speaker 1: you said, people suffer a bit from uh their own
Speaker 1: like sense of self, you know, because see here's what
Speaker 1: I wonder, isn't in there Do they hear it in
Speaker 1: their head as their own regular accent? I don't think so. No.
Speaker 1: I think it sounds off to them, and I think
Speaker 1: it's probably distressing because they're like, wait, let me say
Speaker 1: that again, and they still say it the what they
Speaker 1: perceive is the wrong way, because apparently one of the
Speaker 1: hallmarks of for an accent syndrome is the errors or
Speaker 1: the differences that they make, uh pro in their prosody
Speaker 1: is predictable, which makes it like an accent. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what an accent as is. You're going to drop
Speaker 1: your ta s or replace the T with the th,
Speaker 1: h with the D just about every time I add
Speaker 1: that are when you say wash um yeah exactly, Like
Speaker 1: that's it's a predictable thing, and that's part of foreign
Speaker 1: accent syndroma. It starts to happen in predictable ways too,
Speaker 1: so I would guess, yeah, it sounds off to them
Speaker 1: as well well. Because the reason I say that is
Speaker 1: because when um, like, and I think I've talked about this,
Speaker 1: when my grandfather had a stroke, he still talked, but
Speaker 1: it just came as gibberish. But in his head he
Speaker 1: was saying the things that he was trying to say,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, one of the most frustrating things
Speaker 1: I think after a stroke victim is I remember seeing
Speaker 1: him talk and getting so frustrated. He would just you know,
Speaker 1: say things out loud and it would come out as
Speaker 1: gibberish to us, but in his head he's still saying,
Speaker 1: you know, his English words, they's gotta make you feel
Speaker 1: trapped in your body. Yeah. Um. However, f A S
Speaker 1: is a little all over the map because there have
Speaker 1: been other weird cases. Because we've been saying this whole time,
Speaker 1: there's not un new identity. It's the same, Uh, You're
Speaker 1: saying the same words and everything. But there have been
Speaker 1: cases where people do substitute outwards, like you would say
Speaker 1: lift instead of an elevator, right, That's like the psychogenic version.
Speaker 1: I know, it's just so confusing. Well it almost makes
Speaker 1: me think, like, so before there was nothing but neurogenic
Speaker 1: foreign accent syndrome, right, everything else was you're just crazy.
Speaker 1: Now they they recognize that they're psychogenic f A S
Speaker 1: as well. I think what's gonna happen with more and
Speaker 1: more study, They're gonna just diverge into two totally different syndromes. Now, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes sense, you know. I think they're gonna be like,
Speaker 1: that's actually not the same thing. That's something totally different.
Speaker 1: Neurogenic for an extent syndrome is its own thing, and
Speaker 1: psychogenic is is something else entirely. I'll just make up
Speaker 1: a new name. Yeah. Uh. This one other case I
Speaker 1: thought was interesting about the Dutch woman, which one she
Speaker 1: was Dutch is Dutch and she developed a French accent,
Speaker 1: but she spoke Dutch using French syntax and occasionally for
Speaker 1: in French words as if she was a French person
Speaker 1: learning Dutch. And it turns out that she was a
Speaker 1: Dutch language teacher who taught French people to speak Dutch.
Speaker 1: And I don't know it's her psychogenic or neurogenic. It
Speaker 1: would have to be psychogenic because neurogenic has basically that
Speaker 1: original um Harry Whittaker criteria use different words and things. Well,
Speaker 1: well it was it has to not be related to
Speaker 1: the patient's ability to speak a foreign language. So like
Speaker 1: that she would be technically canceled out from neurogenic for
Speaker 1: that one, and um it would also it didn't have
Speaker 1: anything to do with with central nervous system damage, which
Speaker 1: is again that's why I think it's gonna end up
Speaker 1: being its own thing. Man. So interesting it is? Uh,
Speaker 1: that's all I've got. Man, isn't that enough? Man? Any
Speaker 1: language stuff? Anytime we talk about language in the brain,
Speaker 1: I guess neural linguistics. I just turned to Google. It's
Speaker 1: so interesting to me. Yeah, that's what happens when something
Speaker 1: interests me. I turned to Google. If you want to
Speaker 1: turn to Goo and learn are about foreign accent syndrome.
Speaker 1: You can type those words in the search bar at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. And since I said that,
Speaker 1: it's time for Chuck administrated details. How was that? That
Speaker 1: was great? Man? So Chuck, Yes, we've got some more
Speaker 1: people to thank for sending us some nice stuff. That's right.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start off with Nathan for latso Uh, he's
Speaker 1: sent some really lovely hand drawn calendars and bookmarks. Um.
Speaker 1: And you can find those at Wildlife dot Wildlife dot
Speaker 1: Marini for Latso dot com dot au. And that's M
Speaker 1: A R I and I F E R l A
Speaker 1: z z O dot com dot Au. And um, it
Speaker 1: was really really beautiful work and it's it's a cool
Speaker 1: thing because a portion of every sale is donated to
Speaker 1: a nonprofit wildlife organization. Very nice. I think you handle
Speaker 1: at Foreign Accent very well. Thank you. Um. I want
Speaker 1: to say thanks big time to Robert Combs or Combs
Speaker 1: from White Tail Coffee for the amazing coffees. Um, especially
Speaker 1: like seriously, it's a really good coffee, especially the Ladaris
Speaker 1: and Lamarella. Um. And that's white Tail t A L E. Coffee. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's just an amazing coffee subscription service that you should
Speaker 1: check out. Uh. I got a couple of more coffees.
Speaker 1: I'll just knock them both out. You have one sitting,
Speaker 1: actually have two of them sitting on your desk right now,
Speaker 1: my friend, wait to grab them. True Stone Coffee Roasters
Speaker 1: from St. Paul, Minnesota, Sin. It's their medium blend and
Speaker 1: I can't vouch for the taste yet because it just
Speaker 1: got here, but it smells good. And then devon from
Speaker 1: True Coffee Roasters in Fitchburg, Wisconsin, Sinus uh dark roasted
Speaker 1: Sumatra and in Mexico Alutra. I'm sorry, altera nice, thanks
Speaker 1: a lot coffee coming out our ears. It's great. That's
Speaker 1: a good place to be. But we're not gonna have diabetes.
Speaker 1: My friend now, Doug Fuchs, sent us a beautiful illustrated card.
Speaker 1: Thanks for that dog, Thanks for saying hi. Meg from Seattle,
Speaker 1: she sent me a card about Lauren's passing my cat
Speaker 1: which I lost last year, which is very very sweet.
Speaker 1: And while I'm on that, um Buckley, my old boy
Speaker 1: passed away a couple of weeks ago, and um, everyone
Speaker 1: on Facebook was beyond supportive and sweet and that really
Speaker 1: helped out. So thanks for that. Yeah, from everybody listening
Speaker 1: to you, Chuck, we send our condolences. Thank you. It
Speaker 1: was very dark time. Um. Let's see Preston Pope. He
Speaker 1: sent us some amazing chocolates Chuck from the Chocolates V.
Speaker 1: Just the letter v Chocolates dot Com. Uh, seriously, it's
Speaker 1: good stuff. I feel bad. I feel like I'm running around.
Speaker 1: I'm a little bit sweets that's okay, that we'll always
Speaker 1: come back to them, okay, Uh buddy, Jeff Barney was
Speaker 1: kind enough, and I still haven't tried it's in my fridge,
Speaker 1: but you said it's the best. He sent us QP
Speaker 1: Japanese mayo. Oh it's so good because of my love
Speaker 1: for mayonnaise, and um, chuck, you may never go back
Speaker 1: to American mayo again. Well, I'm finishing up a gallon
Speaker 1: of dukes this afternoon. Yeah, I'm just gonna gonna shoot
Speaker 1: it down and then I'm gonna dive into the QP
Speaker 1: and see what's going on there. I gotta see what
Speaker 1: the difference is. It's subtle, but do you You'll notice,
Speaker 1: You'll say, wow, this is actually really really good mayonnaise.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, thanks Jeff Barney for that. Um. Thanks
Speaker 1: a lot to Tim and Joe from Primer Stories. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you remember, but our animal rights double
Speaker 1: parter tied into an essay I wrote, um Primer Stories
Speaker 1: dot com and they sent t shirts to say thanks
Speaker 1: for that. So thanks back for you guys. Support. Ian
Speaker 1: Newton of the Baltimore Ski Company send us some ginger
Speaker 1: Apple liqueur and gin. Yes, thanks a lot. Uh, Don Kent,
Speaker 1: who last gave us some Pliny the Elder before, which
Speaker 1: was nice, also sent us a bunch of soilent, and
Speaker 1: thank you also to Soilent itself, the company who heard
Speaker 1: our soiling episode and said, you guys haven't tried soilent. Here,
Speaker 1: here's some soilent, and thank you for that soilent. That
Speaker 1: was very nice. I think they got what they wanted
Speaker 1: out of this, which is for us to say soilent
Speaker 1: twelve times soilent. Uh. This came in today Thomas Craig
Speaker 1: ol car k R E g L. He sent me
Speaker 1: a frigging monocle. Oh that's neat. And he heard me
Speaker 1: talking about my eyes going and how I just need
Speaker 1: him to read things close up. And he said, buddy,
Speaker 1: here's what you need to do because you will one
Speaker 1: day embarrass your daughter like I embarrassed my children. You
Speaker 1: need to rock a monocle. And it's a monocle. So
Speaker 1: is he like a trained optometrist who can like no, no,
Speaker 1: So he just gave you a piece of glass that's
Speaker 1: gonna ruin your eye over time. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: tried it and it's you know, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: a reader. It works about the same as my prescription,
Speaker 1: but he uses one. He sent a little picture of
Speaker 1: himself and uh, I guess I should plug the company.
Speaker 1: It's near sites. Monocles is what he used. And UM, yeah,
Speaker 1: I got a monocle now, job, I'm gonna use it.
Speaker 1: Your new nickname is Pringles Guy. Okay, I've got someone else,
Speaker 1: Pringles Guy. Janelle Samara send us a copy of her
Speaker 1: book Our Only Hope, Thank you and congratulations on writing
Speaker 1: a book. Bridget mass Off in a S. S O. T. H.
Speaker 1: Send it's some really cute along with an extra large
Speaker 1: handwritten note s and it's some really cute Josh and
Speaker 1: Chuck cutouts, like kind of paper cutting paste cutouts, and
Speaker 1: yours is on your desk. Thank you. We gotta get
Speaker 1: out of this room and over to your desk. You
Speaker 1: got a bounty, uh, Francis Della Pause. So you know,
Speaker 1: there's like a whole group of people out there who
Speaker 1: believe in writing letters, beautiful letters with fountain pens and
Speaker 1: all that, and Francis Della Pause is one of them.
Speaker 1: Sent us a beautiful handwritten letter. And you also apparently
Speaker 1: customarily send what's called the flat gift. And they sent
Speaker 1: a postcard the Sad Life of Sad clown which is great.
Speaker 1: Sad clowns are great. Well, I got a few letters. Actually,
Speaker 1: I'll just knock those out because Sandra maybe this was
Speaker 1: because of International Correspondence Writing Month, Uh that we got
Speaker 1: these because apparently that happened. But Sandra sent us a
Speaker 1: nice handwritten letter and honor that specifically. And then Austin
Speaker 1: from Bakersfield sent us a very nice handwritten note. And
Speaker 1: then Kristen Cook sent us a Valentine State card to
Speaker 1: all of us, including Harry Noel that Harry Knowles of
Speaker 1: ain't it cool? New is? But our own Nuel who
Speaker 1: was just paring. We got some other ones to chuck.
Speaker 1: We got a lighthouse postcard from Big Sable Point from Teresa. Um,
Speaker 1: we got a couple of Christmas cards from the Johnson
Speaker 1: Alaman family and Test Sullivan and her family. Uh. And
Speaker 1: I guess in part because the national what is it
Speaker 1: National Writing Month or letter writing month? International Correspondence Writing month? Exactly.
Speaker 1: Noel Verosa, no sorry, Noel veris Soza, Noel Veri Zosa.
Speaker 1: It's hand written. You can't you know? I got it
Speaker 1: that last time, Noel Noel Veri Zosa wrote us a
Speaker 1: nice hand letter, handwritten letter in fountain pen. I've got
Speaker 1: two more. Um, Megan Moon Waltzman. That's Megan with two g's. Oddly,
Speaker 1: she sent us a copy of this really cool thing
Speaker 1: she made. It's a book. It's called Songbook, a book
Speaker 1: of music for all levels, all ages, and it is
Speaker 1: eleven songs, uh, kind of written out as chords and
Speaker 1: things and illustrated for different instruments, like there'll be a
Speaker 1: song for guitar, an intro song for banjo, one for cello,
Speaker 1: and it's got these cool pictures and then you can
Speaker 1: download these songs and kind of figure it's I mean,
Speaker 1: it says for all ages, but it seems like it'd
Speaker 1: be great to give a kid, right, So check that out.
Speaker 1: It's very worthwhile. Um, I've got two more to finish
Speaker 1: than two. One. Austin Doyle sent me an amazing oil
Speaker 1: craned painting um, which I assume will inflate and value
Speaker 1: very rapidly once Austin dies. Hopefully doesn't doesn't happen, because
Speaker 1: Doyle is one of our oldest uh and I don't
Speaker 1: mean by age, but one of our longest time listeners. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a great guy. I mean like when he dies
Speaker 1: of old age, I just plan to outlive him. That's okay,
Speaker 1: so I can catch in on the painting he made me. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then Ben and Aaron Gibson sent us the Japanese
Speaker 1: car magnets that signify an elderly driver or a team driver,
Speaker 1: which we've talked about before. Oh yeah, yeah, I remember this, dudes.
Speaker 1: I got one more and this one. Well, you have
Speaker 1: no idea what's waiting in there. You just came right
Speaker 1: into the recording studio for a change. Um on your
Speaker 1: desk right now, Josh, I can't wait. You have a
Speaker 1: handmade cutting board. Awesome, and it's really really nice. It's
Speaker 1: from Christopher at the Timbered Wolf, and um, it's just
Speaker 1: you know, it's gorgeous. He sent a couple of these
Speaker 1: in and they're really really nice. Nice. So you gotta
Speaker 1: you gotta take care of it Though'll left the instructions
Speaker 1: for you. I got a lot of stuff to carry
Speaker 1: out of here. Yeah, you need a someone needs to
Speaker 1: send Josh a wheelbarrow or a radio flyer. Who I
Speaker 1: got one of those for my kid. It's nice. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the old red wagon like the real one. The radio flyer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they still make them nice. Well, thank you again to
Speaker 1: everybody who's sent us so much great stuff. We appreciate
Speaker 1: it big time. Uh and UH. If you want to
Speaker 1: get in touch with us, you can tweet to us.
Speaker 1: I'm at josh Um Clark and s Y s K podcast,
Speaker 1: Chuck's at Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Stuff. He's you
Speaker 1: know on Facebook, and you can send us both in
Speaker 1: emails to stuff podcasts at how stuff Works dot com
Speaker 1: and has always joined us at our home on the web,
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com For more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics because at how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com