I am sure I find words far more confusing than they need to be. I have words I hate and words I can not say because of how they make my mouth form into shape. The words I hate I am quite happy to type onto this screen, I am quiet happy to read them just so long as I don't have to form them in my mouth. Infact there is one on that very picture niggling at the corners of my mouth - urgh.

It does seem however its not just the act of saying them aloud which upsets me, because I don't like to hear others say them either. Curious indeed. Maybe I worry for how their mouths must feel forming such shapes. There are also some words that just hold too much behind them, words that to say would be offering to much information, like saying a secret out loud - It doesn't make it a secret anymore, and even harder when those secrets have been kept by you from yourself.

Words have been making me cross this week, words that I can not say, ones that get stuck in my mouth like when you have carelessly put to much food in and can neither swallow nor chew comfortably. Yet thats a physical presence, words are not, they are just sounds, and it is these sounds that make me cross.

I dont think I am alone in my speech phobia,... maybe its not actually the words I dislike, more the act of saying them. But what are words without sound? Shapes?

I have been reading about the relatively new idea of training dogs to read, an idea inspired to help assistance dogs, mainly Guide Dogs. The idea is that if a dog can read, it is able to look for EXIT signs and so on. You start by using flash cards and showing it to your dog whilst saying the command. Then you move onto just showing the card, we are currently training our office dog Max . Once the dog has mastered single words you can start to put words together - for example "no fouling" - hmmm I am not convinced.

This picture is something I would like to do, just get all the words that get stuck and just chuck them out in front of me - then pick them out and hold them up when I need to. Maybe those cute fridge magnets would do the job, however I don't think I would find the words I struggle with in the box.