She is everywhere, from The Today Show to The Huffington Post….a regular Susan Boyle. She’s Karen Butler, a 56-year-old tax consultant from Oregon who went to her dentist for extractions and implant placement for an overdenture and came out with a little extra….a new way of speaking. Apparenty she acquired foreign language syndrome, a neurological phenomenon where “sufferers” suddenly pronounce their native languages “with an accent that to listeners may be mistaken as foreign or dialectical.” (The quote’s from Wikipedia). Apparently there’ve only been about 60 reported cases ever, and they usually occur after a stroke, severe migraine, or other brain trauma.
Ms. Butler was heavily sedated for her oral surgery but was not given general anesthesia. When she “woke” she noticed she was talking oddly, but chalked it up to pain and swelling. But once the swelling subsided, her speech was definitely different….described as a combination of Welsh and Transyvanian accents. You be the judge…..here’s a video.
http://videos.oregonlive.com/oregonian/2011/04/karen_butler_acquires_a_vaguel.html
Incidentally, she has absolutely no other side effects post surgery.
Anyway, this story stands on its own in terms of entertainment and oddity, but I do just have one thing to add. Why her full upper denture have a huge diastema?
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