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Being tongue-tied is something that many of us will experience in our lives. While, for most people, the inability to express themselves could be a one-off or rare occurrence, for some people it can be an overwhelming, debilitating and enduring condition that prevents them from engaging with the wider world. In Sideways, Matthew Syed, who has had his own problems with feeling tongue-tied, looks at why speech is not as straightforward as one would think and why the solution is as much about the ears as it is anything else.

Not to be confused with tongue-tie, the condition found in infants, being tongue-tied is when words fail you completely, often at the moment when finding the right thing to say really matters.

Simon Day

Simon’s story: an ominous sign

Yorkshireman Simon Day experienced a few instances of being tongue-tied in his early life that he initially brushed off. Freezing up before speaking at a school assembly was one example, and one that could resonate with a number of people. Being too anxious to send back food on a first date might also sound familiar to some. However, in this case Simon caused himself food poisoning. The acute discomfort he brought on himself was, as Simon acknowledges, a sign that “this was something that was not going to improve, and in fact, it was going to threaten the rest of my life.”

Language: an evolutionary bodge.

Speech and communication have to bring together two opposites - our separate selves and our instinct to be social animals. This is not a straightforward process. There’s a tension between the two, not helped by the fact that humans and words are complex. Joe Moran, professor of English and cultural history at Liverpool John Moores University and author of Shrinking Violets: The Secret Life of Shyness thinks that being tongue-tied is a reasonable response to this given that language “is essentially an evolutionary bodge that we've invented to try and bridge that unbridgeable chasm between people.”

Choosing your words carefully

There’s no one way to express an idea. Your brain sifts through a lot of information to find the words you want to use. It then prepares the sounds of the words, sending instructions to your motor system to move your tongue and lips and speak. These processes are undertaken at speed. “If you're insecure or if it's a high-pressure situation that can slow you down,” says Dr. Alissa Melinger, an expert in psycholinguistics at the University of Dundee.

“We have what's called an internal and external monitor,” says Melinger, “which is a process that pays attention to what it is we're about to say and then what it is we just said.” High pressure situations will tend to make us pay more attention to these monitors – and that’s assuming we have even managed to select anything at all.

Even when we’re relaxed and have a clear idea of what we want to say, we can find it hard to express ourselves. Dr Melinger explains that this ‘tip-of-the-tongue’ state, as it is known, happens because, although we have grasped a ‘grammatical representation’ of what we’re saying, the connection to ‘phonological representation’ is not strong enough. A good example of this is someone trying, but failing, to remember the name of a programme, place or pop group and only being able to express what letter the name begins with or how many syllables it has.

Shyness is a legitimate choice.

At the same time as developing the ability to speak, humans have, as Matthew notes, also “developed all the stress and worry that comes with it too.” Joe Moran sees shyness as a natural – if unwanted – consequence of evolution. “It's just one of the ways that we’ve found to be alive,” says Joe, adding: “being shy is not necessarily the best solution to being alive, but it is a solution.” Among those for whom shyness was an answer were introverts Charles Dickens, Marcel Proust and Jane Austen.

Simon’s story: cheers to the Toastmasters!

After leaving school, Simon’s fears about how being tongue-tied was going to affect his future were being realised. He’d found a job in marketing and was, at first, able to keep himself to himself. However, his routine was disrupted when he was asked to help the company’s sales team on the phones. He quit rather than go through with this.

Simon worried that he wasn’t going to leave a mark on the world and enjoy normal friendships and relationships, a concern that “started to become at least as terrifying to me as speaking to people”.

Motivated by his anxiety, Simon joined a local branch of the Toastmasters, a global network of public speaking clubs, aimed at improving people's communication. He found being among this community empowering - a sentiment backed up by Sideways presenter Matthew Syed who also joined Toastmasters between his careers as a table tennis player and a journalist.

Speaking synthesises the stories we tell, breaking down bits of information in our heads bit by bit. Dr Kathryn Mannix, a retired palliative care consultant and author of Listen: How to Find the Words for Tender Conversations explains: “While we're listening to the person telling their story, they are also listening to themselves telling the story and they're starting to get an insight and a purchase on the narrative or the inner meaning for them that's making the things so difficult.”

I think that perhaps the secret of success is feeling that 鈥業 want to give this person a really good listening to.'

Dr. Kathryn Mannix

Mannix recommends a kind of ‘speaking hygiene’ whereby the speaker prioritises what they want to know rather than what they want to say and thinks of the questions they want to ask. The key then is to “really, really listen” before responding. “Rather than thinking, ‘I've got to give this person a really good talking to,’” says Mannix, “I think that perhaps the secret of success is feeling that ‘I want to give this person a really good listening to.’”

Simon’s story: left speechless before finding a voice again.

The progress made by Simon through Toastmasters was upset by his wife Laura’s traumatic birth experience, during which both Laura and their baby were at risk. Simon was unable to open up to anyone about the experience until a colleague at work reached out. This was Simon’s big listening moment – he heeded advice about getting professional help, and it paid off.

Back out in the world again and using the communications skills he learned, Simon became a teacher helping disadvantaged children to express themselves and then started a business to help motivate more people to find their voice.

The last word

Summing up the experience of Simon Day and the advice of the experts he spoke to, Matthew says: “It's only when you overcome your fear of being tongue-tied that you're most likely to avoid becoming tongue-tied. But it's only by understanding and accepting the complexity and fallibility of language that you can sit back, relax and really begin to use it.”

To discover more ideas and stories that help us to see the world a little differently, you can listen to Sideways on 麻豆社 Sounds.