I
recently read an interesting article about a woman from Texas who woke up from
jaw surgery last December and now speaks with a foreign accent. She suffers from what experts call Foreign
Accent Syndrome (FAS). Apparently there
have only been about 100 documented cases of FAS which was first described over
100 years ago.
FAS
is a rare case in which someone afflicted with it suddenly wakes up one day
speaking with a Southern twang or perhaps a British accent. In the case of this Texas woman, she now “suffers”
from speaking with a British accent.
I
learned from reading this article how this syndrome usually develops after
neurological damage such as a stroke and this causes the rhythm and tone of a
person’s speech to suddenly change.
Experts warn us that any change in speech, such as an accent change, can
be the first sign of a stroke and someone experiencing this needs to be
immediately evaluated by a doctor.
FAS
can be brought on by psychological reasons such as anxiety, depression or
emotional trauma even if there's no physiological damage to the brain as in
the case of a stroke.
Perhaps
the psychological perils of being a middle-aged man can cause a similar condition in which we
one day wake up from a deep sleep and ask our wives, in an older-version of Rocky
Balboa vocal expression, “Yo honey, what’s for breakfast?”
If
this happens, chances are we have what this middle-aged man expert calls MAMMA or
middle-aged man macho accent.
Pax
Domini sit semper vobiscum
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