'What a Wonderful World' always makes me chuckle

Like most people, I love a good laugh.  But do most people sometimes find themselves unable to turn the laughter off?  I do.  Something will get me going and I will laugh and laugh and laugh ... until I have a coughing fit, choke, or -let's be honest- wet myself.  Sometimes, all three.

I hope my good friend Dani is reading because if she is, she will be saying, "You've got that right.  I remember the time in third year Sign Language lectures when..."

I think it was our third year at University when we spent a term learning some basic Australian Signed English. During the term, we'd learned a lot of vocabulary and we'd also been preparing to videotape our class signing (not singing) to Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World."  I remember practicing the signs during the classes as well as afterwards when I was back in my college dorm room, usually joined by a particular sign-loving student of Urban & Regional Planning.

On our final day of classes we stood up behind our desks, preparing to be videotaped as we signed to the song, just as we'd practiced.  Perhaps my main concern at that stage was that I might forget some of the signs or get lost during the song.  But I was soon to find out that there was another notable way I could disgrace myself in the class video.

Soon after the song started, the absurdity of being one of 56 students standing up behind their desks in a classroom doing sign language to Louis Armstrong singing "What a Wonderful World" hit me as being utterly hilarious.

I smiled.  I smirked.  I grinned, and did that funny thing where you try to use your grinning muscles to pull your face back into "deadpan" but end up failing miserably.

I giggled.  I laughed.  I totally cracked up and tried to wipe away the tears without anyone noticing.

I looked at Dani beside me.  She was signing the song flawlessly, smiling quizzically but deliberately not meeting my eye.

Now instead of laughing at "Practically Nothing" I was laughing at the sheer insanity of being one student among 56 standing behind a desk signing to Louis Armstrong observing skies of blue and clouds of white while being videotaped and finding it so funny that she was laughing and couldn't control herself.

As Mr Armstrong remarked on friends shaking hands, saying How do you do?' I realised I was ruining the video.  This made me laugh harder to the point where my facial muscles were quite out of control.  I decided there was no way to salvage my dignity but to duck down under the desk and try to compose myself.  Once under the desk, I laughed like a madwoman at the situation I found myself in: one person crouched under a desk in a class of 55 serious signing people, cackling hysterically because it was so funny that I couldn't stop laughing because I'd found something (what?) funny in the first place.

From that position, I realised there was no dignified way to emerge with a tear-streaked face from below a desk and rejoin one's classmates in front of the video camera as if nothing had happened.

I was a fool.  I tried it anyway.

As I stood up and rejoined Dani, it dawned on me that materializing from below the desk was more ridiculous than everything else I'd done since Louis had reported on the trees of green and red roses too.  I laughed so hard I was practically weeping.  After briefly considering ducking straight back down under the desk, I decided that doing so may just disqualify me from graduating or something.  I was left to snigger away to myself while attempting to sign a few 'What a Wonderful Worlds' as the music died away and my classmates stared at me in disbelief.

Sorry, Dani.  I have no explanation.

But as I guess you can imagine, every time I hear Louis Armstrong singing "What a Wonderful World," I giggle a little bit.

A Big Earner

I always loved driving through the country to my small country schools.  I'd often listen to a Brisbane radio station as I drove, just so I could hear a Traffic Report.  "The Mt Gravatt-Capalaba Road is stop-start due to an earlier accident, and all cars are being diverted from the Gateway Motorway..."  I sailed past crops and cows, through tiny townships with ancient pubs and small weatherboard houses on giant blocks of land.

Once I saw a fox running across my road.  Another time, I saw a pheasant.  Frequently, I had to go very slowly on the narrow road to one township because I'd get stuck behind a carrot truck.  I was alerted to the presence of the carrot truck a few kilometres before I saw it, because of the orange splodges on the road.  Smashed and squashed carrots.

Then I'd round a corner and see a little truck with an eight-foot deep open container piled extremely high with carrots, spilling bright orange cargo as it wobbled slowly down the narrow lanes.


Most other therapists thought that taking a government car was the best way to go, and they were disappointed if they were forced to take their own car and claim mileage after the fact.  Perhaps they hadn't done the maths involved - taking one's own car was undoubtedly much better.  Where they would complain about the evil nemesis "Wear and Tear" wreaking havoc on their precious cars, I would smugly remember that "wear and tear" basically means you'd take your car in for its regular service a week earlier than otherwise (the cost of the service being more than amply covered by the previous month's kilometric allowance.)

Then one day I worked out how much money my little car brought me for a one-hour trip to one of my country schools.  I compared that figure with what I earned each hour.

And darn it, if my little Ford Laser didn't earn more than I did!

O I C D BD ii

(Translation: "Oh, I see the beady little eyes.")

As you have no doubt noticed, I have completely lost my blogging mojo.  However, I love my blog and have no desire to stop blogging.  For this reason, on Tuesday night I wrote a few posts and scheduled them to drip into your Readers for the next few days.  I hope you enjoyed them.  I did.

Now, I've been meaning to write down a few Speech Files stories.

I remember the time I was working in a very small country district with a little boy who was quite difficult to understand.  Even though he was very quiet, he always tried his best in therapy.  There were many times when I didn't understand him, but I tried to keep the communication positive and give him some good experiences communicating.

One day, we were doing a therapy session in a quiet spot in the school library.  The day was getting hotter and the doors and windows of the small country school library were all open to let in the breeze.

During the therapy session, my little student said the longest sentence he'd ever said.  Joy!  I saw an opportunity to give him some positive reinforcement in the way of an actual conversation, but honestly, I had no idea what he'd just said.  His speech contained so many errors I couldn't even guess.

I asked him to repeat what he'd said, and he did.  Again, I desperately searched my brain for some context that would help me guess at a few of the words he said, but to be frank, I still couldn't imagine what he'd said.

I hate doing this, but I really wanted to have the conversation so I asked the little guy once more to help me understand what he'd said.  And again, I was lost for a translation.

Then I did something that I don't do anymore.  I pretended I understood him.  Perhaps now, with a few more years experience I would say I was sorry but I didn't understand him.  Maybe I would sheepishly suggest that "my ears weren't working", but I wouldn't pretend I understood something I didn't.  This is because I know now that your white lies will find you out.

I turned back to the speech work, and something on the floor caught my eye.  A small black head with beady little eyes was looking up at me and my brain jumped to the instantaneous conclusion that it always jumps to when I see small heads with beady eyes looking at me - SNAKE!

I screamed!  No, not a little "Eek!"  A convincing scuh-REAM!"

In the next split second, I'd realised it wasn't a snake but a magpie that had wandered in through the open door.   Not only had I disgraced myself by screaming at a little black bird, but I'd let on to my speech student that I'd lied about understanding him.

With the benefit of sudden context and a pretty good auditory memory, I realised that the little mite had been patiently telling me "A bird is in the room."

As his speech improved over the years, I hope he told the story of the silly speech lady who jumped a foot in the air and screamed when she saw the magpie, despite being adequately warned of its presence.

I would deserve that.

TGIF

TGIF. Literally.

There are many things to thank God for on Fridays, I find. I love Fridays. When I'm working in between children, I usually work a half day or a full day on a Friday. That way, every day has a pleasant TGIF feeling about it.

And when I say TGIF, I mean literally, T. the real G. that I.F.

You see, I often am struck by how blessed I am to live in a country where a girl can be educated. I am very thankful for that, and I am also thankful that I made it through school and university, events which stun me afresh each time I get to pondering.

I am thankful for my first terrible job which taught me how to duck and weave through the minefield of middle management. It taught me that if you have several different bosses, quietly clarifying Boss A's unreasonable requests with Boss B can be a bad idea. It taught me that Boss A and Boss B could possibly be in a relationship with each other. It taught me never to discount possibilities like that simply because Boss A and Boss B are both women.

I am thankful for my second wonderful job in which I got plenty of practise in the basic skills of my profession, and had the opportunities to work with brilliant colleagues, inspirational school staff and to attend some wonderful professional development.

I am thankful for my first job in a private practice where I learned about running my own small business. I worked with some wonderful, generous, helpful therapists, and will always be in their debt.

And now I am thankful to join a new practice a short walk from my new home in my new town. Fridays are again quite wonderful. After a day of using my brain to its potential in my magnificent new practice, I walk home to my house (which seems cleaner and tidier than when I left it although it isn't,) and my children (who seem happier and calmer and nicer-smelling than when I left them although they're pretty much the same,) and my husband (who seems a little more dashingly handsome than when I left him, which is WOW because did you see him before?) and there in the slow cooker is a half-leg of lamb slowly simmering in gravy and vegetables.

On Fridays I am reminded of so many things I need to be thankful for.

Space to think

Today was my second day back at work. I am working on Friday afternoons while Mr de Elba has a Daddy afternoon at home.  And as with many Mums of small children heading back to work, I am loving it!

Part of it is because I work in a wonderful office with three other great speech pathologists and a receptionist who does so many little things for me (and other people on the front desk who I don't see on my Friday afternoons.)  Part of it is because the offices are so nice, so well outfitted and so professional.  And part of it is because this whole deal is located about 700 metres from my house (0.43 miles) and it's less than a ten-minute walk away.

But I think one of the biggest parts is that I have  s - p - a - c - e  to think.


I have started slowly, with a few clients each day and long gaps between them.  Once I have prepared for all the day's clients and even had a look at next week's, there's not a lot to do.

Except sit.

In my chair.

And ...

...

just

...

think.



Think about ...

... nothing.



Saying ...

... nothing.



Answering nobody's questions.

Watching nobody doing anything and murmuring words of approval.

Not having to raise my voice to be heard over anybody's chattering.



Just ...

saying ...

and doing ...

nothing.



 Man.  It's good.

The longest word you've never seen

I am going to share with you a darling response a student once gave in an assessment session, because it warms my heart whenever I think of it.  Now we don't go around telling people specific test items because it undermines the validity of the normative date we have, so you'll have to fill in the blanks that I am purposely leaving so that I can maintain the validity of our assessment.

I was assessing using the non-word section of a literacy test.  We often use non-words like (let me make one up) "strave" to see how well students can read and spell words that follow regular phonics rules but they most certainly haven't seen before.  If they are already familiar with a word, there is the possibility they are relying on their sight-word recognition skills rather than their phonics skills only.

In this test of spelling nonwords, my Year 5 student with autistic spectrum disorder was struggling.  He was a clever student, but found it incredibly difficult to use his 'sounding-out' skills to spell the simple one-syllable and two-syllable words I was presenting him.

And then I gave him a few three-syllable words.  He tried his best, but became a little unstuck at a tricky item halfway down the list.

He started well, and was on his way to getting full marks for that item.  However he didn't finish well, but I made a mental note about how close he was to getting that word correct and I was about to move on to the next item.

Then I saw that he was adding another letter to the end.  And another and another and another.  I'd already repeated the word once so wasn't able to repeat it again in the testing situation, but he didn't give any evidence that he'd lost the word from his auditory memory as he continued writing.

Then he hit the edge of the page!  I thought he would finish there, but no, he turned a 90 degree corner and kept writing down the right-hand margin all the way down to the bottom of the page! 

The target word had 10 letters.  His final response contained 34 letters, which included a double 'er' and three 3's.

I thought he was being silly, and expected him to look up with a cheeky grin on his face.

Instead he looked up, raised his eyebrows and said, "Phew!  That was a LONG word!!!"  Then he got ready for the next item.

I always enjoyed working with him!

What Price Saviour?

One of my whole-class speech and language programs was run in a special facility within a large primary school.  The children I was working with were mainly 5-7 year olds with various developmental delays, and some had diagnoses of Autistic Spectrum Disorder.

One of my favourite (except we don't have favourites) boys to work with was one who wasn't on my direct-therapy caseload at all.  Matthew (but of course his name wasn't really Matthew) was a charming 6 year old with Aspergers Syndrome who, despite having difficulties with routines and fitting into a regular class, was very talkative and charming, and he always kept me smiling.

One day as he walked to the bathroom (a little obsession of his), he passed me sitting at a table doing some therapy with another student.  As he walked by, he noticed that I had a pen stuck into my hair.  I often keep a pen stick through my bun or ponytail because I think it's good to have a pen close to hand.  Unfortunately, I never look for pens in my hair, I only stick them in.  There have been times when I've been frantically searching for a pen, only to be told there are three sticking out of my scalp.

Matthew was scandalised.  He addressed me in the tone you'd use for someone being deliberately dense.  "Miss Kate," he said, "did you know you have a pen in your hair." It was more of a "you've got to be kidding me" sort of statement than a question, hence the lack of question mark.

"Yes," I said, "I know. I keep it there so I've always got a pen handy!" 

The only way for me to adequately convey the punchline to you would have been to have taken a picture of the expression he gave me.  Matthew looked at me as if I was completely insane.  It was gorgeous.

But that's all by way of introduction.  I really wanted to tell you about the time I was leading my whole-class speech and language program in front of him and his classmates.  This day, the focus sounds were initial 'r' blends.  I was going through the activities with 'br', 'cr', 'dr', 'fr', 'gr', 'pr' and 'thr' words.  Some of the pictures required explanation.

One of the 'pr' words was 'price', illustrated by a t-shirt with a tag hanging off it showing the price.  I watched as the small children wrinkled their noses, wondering if the word was 'shirt'.  I told them that the tag was showing the price, and that was the target word for the next activity: price.

Suddenly Matthew shot his hand up.  He stretched and strained, desperate to catch my attention and tell me something.  "Ooo, oo, oo!" he said.  "I KNOW that!  I know that word!  We say it at our church all the time!   Jesus Price!"

Sometimes you don't want to finish a session.  You just want to scoop the children up into your arms and hug them tight!

Practicing in front of a mirror isn't such a bad idea

Working as a speech pathologist in schools, I often had to come up with innovative service delivery options so that I could better service the need of schools, rather than just providing assessments and recommendations only.  I certainly did many assessments-only, but I also tried to provide direct individual and group therapy for the higher-needs students wherever I could.

One of the service delivery options I enjoyed providing was the Whole Class Program.  In schools where a great number of lower-priority younger students were referred, I offered to run eight half-hour sessions for the whole group and provide follow-up activities for the teachers.  Each session focussed on one aspect of speech and one aspect of language, and I would lead the activites in front of the group of referred children or the whole class if preferred.

I remember the first time I ran my session focussing on 'l' blends.  I talked a lot about how to produce the 'l' sound, and then I introduced words starting with 'bl', 'cl', 'fl', 'gl' and 'pl' blends.

The school principal (different school, different principal) was inordinately pleased that I could see a large number of her struggling Year 1 students.  She loved the idea of the whole-class program, and came to see how it was working.  She brought her deputy and the learning support teacher as well.  The class teacher was there of course, as were the children.

I was on a roll.  The session was going well, but the children were struggling to get their tongues around the 'l' blends.  I tried an easy technique first.

"Now what's this one?  This is a plum!  Try that ..."  I noticed that they were having trouble with that 'l'.

"It is tricky, isn't it?" I said.  "How about we try saying 'lum' ... see if you can ..."  Yes, that was easier for them.  Little tongues go up to the spot just behind their front teeth and LUMMM!  Yes!

"Okay, now we have to put this 'p' in front of it.  Try 'p-lum' ..."

I could see them thinking very hard about where their lips and tongues were to go - lips closed for the 'p' then tongues up for the 'l'.  And it was working - great.  This technique, easy as it was, seemed to be working for this group of 5 year olds.

"Let's try the next one.  It's a 'cl' one this time.  'Clap'.  First we're going to practice saying, 'lap.'  Now let's put the 'c' in front - 'c-lap'." Great.  We're on a roll!

"This is a flag.  See - I've got 'lag' ... and now we can say, 'flag'."

"This is a glass.  Here I've got 'lass' ... and now we can say 'g-lass'."

"This is a plate.  See, I've got 'late' ... and now we can say 'p-late'."

"This is a knife with its blade.  Now I've got 'lade' ... err ... umm ... I meant ... uh-"

Confused silence.

Wh-what?  Did I just say I've got laid?  In front of a whole class of Year 1 students, their teacher, the Learning Support Teacher, the Deputy Principal and the Principal?

Surely not.

Uh - I wish this lesson was over.

Assessing with the CESS - the Classroom Evaluation of Salutatory Speech

I've never told you much about some of the things I've come across in my work as a speech pathologist.  I have been concerned that even though I would obviously be changing names and protecting anonymity, that I would be somehow doing people an ethical disservice by telling their stories. 

But I think that there are a few stories I can tell in a way so as not to make fun of the communicatively vulnerable, so I will attempt a series of posts called The Speech Files.

This first story does not tell the story of the communicatively vulnerable, it involves a primary school principal and his on-the-spot speech assessment.

During my time working within schools as the itinerant speech pathologist, at any one time my caseload consisted of between 15 and 19 individual schools.  Service provision in this framework meant that each school saw me for a few hours a fortnight and school staff and families were required to provide follow-up work in between my visits.  Understandably, school principals were keen to make sure my time at their school was used wisely.

On a typical visit to one of my schools, the Year 3 teacher was away.  This was a little frustrating for me, as he had nominated one of his students to fill an assessment place (where I carry out an assessment of the student's speech and language skills and provide recommendations) and he hadn't left instructions with his replacement regarding where the official referral form was, nor which student I was to see.

The principal was nearing retirement age.  He was a small but fierce man who dragged respect from students and staff alike.  But I had to see him to ask if the referral form was in the school office, or if he knew which student it was who was referred, (not that I can legally see a student without the official referral or the signed parent permission form.)

I saw the desperation on the principal's face.  Panic!  He didn't know where the forms were, and he knew that I would not be paying another visit for a fortnight.  He was desperate for this student (whoever he/she was) to be seen as soon as possible, and attempted to brush away my firm resolve not to see the student without the formal paperwork.

By golly, this student was going to be ferreted out, and assessed by me, that very day!

He said, "Come with me to the classroom and we'll see if we can work out which student it is."

What was he going to do?  Look on the teacher's desk for the paperwork?  Look in the teacher's handover instructions to the substitute?  I had no idea.

I was certainly not prepared for an impromptu speech assessment carried out upon the entire class.

Please understand this.  Speech and Language Assessments are extremely well-researched psychometric evaluations that have withstood intense scrutiny regarding their validity and reliabilty, and their statistical analysis has been thoroughy tested to make sure that we are testing what we claim to be testing, that similar assessments will show similar results, and we can truy draw the conclusions regarding a child's skills from their performance on the test items.  It's big stuff, people!

The principal didn't understand this.  He devised an on-the-spot screening assessment right then and there, and from the students' barked responses, I was supposed to (a) pinpoint the exact student with the speech problem, (b) overlook the need for formal paperwork, and (c) assess the chosen student right away.

He stood glaring at the class of Year 3 students, trying to divine who the student with speech difficulties could be (or was it language? I wondered.  Or was the student referred for a language-based listeracy problem?)

"Right!" he snapped.  "Stand up, one by one, and say 'Good Morning, Mr Terry*' in a loud, clear voice!  You first!"

A frightened boy pointed to himself.  "Me?"

"Yes!" the principal hissed impatiently.  "Yes, you!  Stand up and say 'Good Morning!'  Go!"

The student half-rose.  "G-good morning Mister Terry," he said, forced into a sudden stutter in panic.  He sat.

"Right!  Next!" snapped the principal.

Stand.  "G'morning Mister Terry!"  the next student said, and sat.  And so on around the classroom.

Stand.  "G'morning Mister Terry!"  Sit.

Stand.  "G'morning Mister Terry!"  Sit.

Stand.  "G'morning Mister Terry!"  Sit.

Stand.  "G'morning Mister Terry!"  Sit.

At the end, there was an awkward silence.  The principal said "Hmm," and turned to me.

"Did anything strike you?" he asked.

Anything apart from the absolute lunacy of the total farce he has just instigated in the name of a whole-class speech screening assessment?  Nope.  Nothing there I don't think.

"I think I'd better wait for the teacher to come back and give me the referral form."

"Hmm.  Okay then.  Will we see you next fortnight then?"

"Yes, you will."

"Okay then."

And I took my leave.  To my knowledge, the CESS (Classroom Evaluation of Salutatory Speech) has never been standardised or published.  I think it may have got a rubbishing in a medical journal too ...

----
* - name changed

The Anatomy Exam

Fifteen years ago, I had a weird moment in an Anatomy Prac exam, and it is haunting me to this day. I need to blog about it.

I know that some of you readers have more delicate sensibilities and others of you have none whatsoever, but I believe that although this post is about -here it comes- the penis, it will not offend as it is discussed in strictly anatomical terms. If however you are offended, please accept my apologies.

Anatomy Prac exams are bizarre experiences. Deep underground in the anatomy labs, about 60 stainess steel tables are set up with a specimen on each end. 120 specimens with 120 questions for 120 students to provide answers to.

The questions attached to each specimen are usually very detailed. So detailed in fact that a pin is stuck into extremely precise structures or blu-tacked to bone with the point of the pin indicating a similarly precise structure. You don't find any general questions: everything is extremely specific.

Imagine my surprise when I moved to a station in my prac exam and was confronted with the following: a pelvis, male, with a pin stuck into the penis, and with the question, "What is this?"

Now the thing that surprised me was that the pin was just ... stuck in. Anywhere. Not in any of the superficial structures, not anywhere special, just ... stuck in.

A penis question would most likely be about the proper anatomical name of a superficial structure or it could be referring to an internal structure as indicated in a cross section. Or even a cross-section with the question, "What fluid does this vessel carry?" Or "what is manufactured here?"

Not a pin stuck in any old place with the question, "What is this?"

Because the answer would have to be "penis" and that's an answer for Year 4 Primary School Sex Ed, not for 1st Year University Anatomy. I'd spent ages learning all the specifics of every bone, ligament, muscle, tendon, nerve, artery, vein and organ in the body, and in the exam, they are going to ask me to name the penis?

I looked at the student who had completed that station before me. He was buried in the next question and showed no confusion over the preceding question.

I looked around the room trying to find the Candid Camera. I couldn't see one.

I imagined a scenario where there was a specific point I'd missed, and the real answer to the question was precise and complex (like the other 119 questions on the exam) ... the lecturer marking my answer rolling around lauging, calling the other lecturers over and hooting, "Look what this idiot has written! Question 61! "Penis!" Ha ha ha! Didn't she learn that in primary school? Ha ha ha!"

But, due to the random placement of the pin, there was no other answer to the question. I shook my head, wrote down "penis" and moved to the next station.

After the exam as my friends and I were discussing and debriefing, I asked them about it.

"Hey ... about question 61?" Blank looks. "The penis. You know."

"Oh yeah?" they said.

"Was the answer really ... Did I miss something? I mean, was there something more specific than ... 'penis'?"

"It was 'penis'," they replied, looking blankly at me. Their looks implied, "Did she find that question difficult? What's the matter with her? Didn't her mother teach her anything?"

And after a brief, disbelieving pause, they went on with their discussion. Again, I shook my head and vowed to forget about it and move on.

At the end of the semester, students are only awarded a grade. There was no way of getting feedback on which questions I answered correctly and which ones I missed.

To my amazement, I received a Credit for the subject.

But fifteen years later, with my degree on the wall and some successful jobs to my credit, I still shake my head and wonder about that question.

Could it really have been that simple?

Goodbye to my first private practice

Today, I did my last Saturday morning at work. In the centre of town is a lovely little private practice with a number of ladies who all work part-time. In early 2006 they took me on, and I have really enjoyed the autonomy, the flexibility and the income that my one or two days a week has provided. I have felt like a stay-at-home Mum while feeling like a career woman, all rolled into one. It's been a great time.

So today, after my last little client, I packed up my assessments, therapy resources, scrapbooks, business cards and everything else, turned off the lights and shut the door.

One day, I'll start up a new practice in Toowoomba. In the meantime, I am only a full-time mother - nothing else, no juggling, no balancing - ONLY focussing on one job! That sounds pretty good to me!

Hand me the microphone, and hear me clear my throat.

Today was the first of two days of a totally awesome workshop entitled "Sound Management: Working with Children with Speech Impairment" presented by Assoc. Prof Sharynne McLeod. It is this year's Speech Pathology Australia National Tour, and I'm attending it! Long-term problems with bed bugs can stop you feeling like a proper person with a profession and a brain. It's good to be reminded. I'm loving it and learning heaps of things that I'll be able to use in my practice.

Today we spent some time on phonetics which gave ME a buzz, because that's always been a part of being a speech pathologist that I've enjoyed and understood quite well.

One of the activites involved all the participants being given a piece of paper on which was a symbol for one of the non-English consonants. You know, slurpy, spluttery, clickey sounds that you get in other languages, but it hurts the mouth of a English speaker when they attempt to say it. We had to describe the sound, and then attempt to say it into a microphone, making it sound like we all had either a strange vocal tic or a bad case of phlegm that we needed to share with the group.

"Umm, it sort of looks like an exclamation mark but it's a postalveolar click, a bit like (clicks loudly into microphone.) This sound is found in Sesotho." The group makes an appreciative mooing noise.

"Well this is a, err, an 'n' with a little dippy thing. It's a retroflex nasal: NNYAHR," (participant practically swallows own tongue,) "... which is produced just in front of a palatal nasal: NNYAH, but with the tongue tip retroflexed. This sound is only found in Norwegian." We moo again.

"I've got this 'c' with a squiggle underneath," ("Cedilla," mutter all the French speakers) "... it's a voiceless palatal fricative ... it sounds like HHCHCHCH ... it's found in German, Norwegian and sometimes Greek." The participant hands the microphone over quickly, hoping nobody notices that they just spat great globs onto it.

"I can't say this," an anxious participant says. "Have a go," Sharynne encourages. "Well, mine is this weird symbol: it's a voiced velar fricative, and I can't really say it..." (anxious pause) "... it's a bit like ... GHGHRRGH ... sort of ... and ummmm, it's found in Vietnamese and Greek." (Relief!)

All good clean fun. Unless you get the microphone just after someone has tried to say a voiceless palatal fricative into it.