Tom Brokaw speech impediment?

Tom Brokaw speech impediment

[stephensalmon]

Thank God there’s a speech pathologist who claims this is a speech impediment and not a regionalism, as I have always thought! This drives me crazy—my son and I always poke fun of people with this problem and try to come up with phrases that make it difficult to say with this impediment. The Life Lock with Giuliani and and Jeff Gilooly are great examples!

[denisen.wagstaff]

Hi there nutdip! I know this was posted years ago, but I thought I'd jump in and answer your question. I'm  Speech Language Pathologist and yes, this IS a speech impediment- this 'velar /l/' reduces the clarity of one's speech and hence, I consider it an impediment.  The typical way to produce the /l/ is with the tongue tip on the alveolar ridge- that bumpy part right behind your teeth. Tom Brokaw uses the back of his tongue and produces this frictionalized sound in the back of the mouth, contacting his velum with the back of his tongue. I have a hard time listening to him, too, for this reason! ;)

[dadgummit]

That kind of speech impediment bothers me soooo bad. It gets under my skin when i hear someone speak like that.

[mperhaps]

Yessiree billy bobcat tail: Tom's particular impediment is called a glottal L or glottal plosive.
See Glottalization. for further study.

[timmyp]

Try hearing him say "Jeff Gillooly" without laughing

[jitsroller]

I have always thought he might have a speech impediment. I tend to listen to dialects and mimic them, something I see as interesting. Seems a lot of media personalties have overcome speech impediment.

[jersmith]

I thought it might be an east coast accent thing. Stephen King does this too

[KC-lyfb]

Yes very bad speach impediment and it drives me nuts. I think he went into tv just to prove something to himself. Hes a mean man to boot.