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Granted, he doesn't have any teeth.

"This is the latht time I work with thomebody with a thpeech impediment!"

A speech impediment is a condition affecting some people that hinders their speaking abilities. Unfortunately, those afflicted with a speech impediment tend to be seen as less intelligent than those without. As a result, speech impediments are almost always given to stupid or awkward characters.

May be faked as Obfuscating Stupidity, or has to be overcome to look intelligent. Rarely is The Hero or a Love Interest affected with this, frequently The Loser. Not to be confused with scared stuttering.

May manifest as a lisp, or as a stutter. Or it may weveo itself as a weawy pwofound twoubo with the wettehs aw and ehw.

May overlap with Verbal Tic. Could be caused by Fang Thpeak. Elmuh Fudd Syndwome is a Subtrope (and so is Porky Pig Pronunciation). Can lead to Viewer Name Confusion.

See also Electronic Speech Impediment.


Examples:

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    Meta 

    Anime & Manga 
  • Ah... and Mm... Are All She Says is titled after the protagonist Toda's unusual case of this, as her problem is the speed she processes language. It takes her a long time (at least two panels' of Visible Silence) to make up a sentence from content words, causing her to grunt during her rather lengthy word-finding before (if given the chance, which fortunately is the case in Present Day) she makes out a completely fluent sentence.
  • Bleach: Neliel Tu Odelschwanck has a rather pronounced lisp in the Japanese anime and manga, causing cute mispronunciations of some words and the main character's name (Isygo). Crosses a little bit into Fang Thpeak as the source of Nel's lisp seems to be her broken teeth.
  • Digimon Adventure 02: In the English dub, Veemon speaks with a lisp, pronouncing "s" as "sh".
  • Gangsta.: Nicholas has been deaf since birth and speaks in a noticeably clipped and awkward manner, including AcCENT Upon the Wrong SylLABle to the point that even the original Japanese subtitles his speech, which is why he usually prefers to communicate via Sign Language.
  • Haruhi Suzumiya:
    • Tsuruya's Cute Little Fang gives her a small impediment that causes her to occasionally mispronounce words. Fans also speculate that this is where her "Nyoron~" comes from.
    • Mikuru is also described as having a slight lisp in the original novels and the Japanese script for the anime, but it's not carried over into the English dub of the series.
  • Heart Catch Pretty Cure: Potpourri has a lisp, most likely because he's a young fairy, leading him to call his partner Itsuki "Itshuki" and his Verbal Tic "-desu" "-deshu".
  • Hetalia: Axis Powers: For whatever reason, Sweden can't pronounce his vowels.
    Sweden: F'nl'nd's m' w'fe.
    Finland: What?
  • Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere: Suzu, the blind girl who "sees" using Magitek sonar, has a speech impediment which Fridge Logic states is because said device relays her own voice back to her. Which is a real condition, albeit without the Magitek.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury: Suletta Mercury, the heroine, has a very pronounced stutter. It worsens when she's nervous (which is often), and eases up when she's comfortable (particularly when piloting her Gundam).
  • Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt has Brief, particularly around Pa-Pa-Pa-Pa-Panty.
  • Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Sakura Kyouko has a slight lisp.
  • A Silent Voice: Shoko is deaf, and when she speaks, her words are quite slurred. This is most noticeable when she was bullied by Shoya as an elementary schooler and later when he doesn't understand her Anguished Declaration of Love (mistaking "love"/"suki" for "moon"/"tsuki").

    Asian Animation 
  • Happy Heroes has a penguin for one of its minor villains, introduced in episode 40 of Season 2, who has a noticeable stutter. It gets to the point that there's a stutter built into his name, "P-p-p-p-penguin M-m-monster".
  • Motu Patlu: One of John the Don's goons, Number 2, speaks with a noticeable lisp that sometimes makes it difficult for other characters to understand him.

    Comic Books 
  • Batman villain Ventriloquist has a unique one when speaking through the puppet Scarface where he replaces his "B"s with "G"s, leading to Scarface defiantly calling Batman and Robin "Gatman and Rogin".
  • Depending on the Writer, Cloak of Cloak and Dagger (Marvel Comics) sometimes has a stutter when he's forced to revert to being Tyrone Johnson.
  • In The Filth, "poor autistic" Le Pen is revealed to have a lisp, which is why she usually only communicates via her giant pens.
  • Killing and Dying: Jesse has a stutter. Her mother is supportive of the stand-up comedy class in part because she thinks it'll be good for her daughter to gain confidence.
  • When he was young, Richard Dragon had a speech impediment that contributed to the high level of bullying he was victim to. It didn't help that his last name was Drakunovski which he had a very difficult time saying, which was part of the reason he started using Dragon instead.
  • Robin (1993): Issue #168 mentions a speech impediment passed down by one of the seven families of the map is one of the seven parts needed to put together a map to the usually unmappable Nanda Parbat.
  • The Sandman (1989):
    • Abel stutters heavily. The stutter goes away when he's telling a story and seems to be nerves due to his brother's cruel habits. In the same series and Lucifer, Mazikeen can only talk with half her face (the other half rotted away); she borders on The Unintelligible.
    • Zelda. Apparently that's the reason why she was originally speechless.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics): When Mighty and Sonic's friend Ray the Flying Squirrel was introduced, he had a very pronounced stutter caused by his crippling insecurity. The stutter was removed following the first reboot.
  • In Spellbinders, Francis Foley has a severe stutter, supposedly as a result of an unspecified neurological issue.
  • In the Superman storyline The Killers of Krypton, the owner of a space bar located at the far end of the Vega system mispronounces words and has a slight but noticeable lisp.
  • Wonder Woman (1942):
    • Byrna Brilyant has a stutter, which gives away her villain identity when she speaks for herself while in disguise instead of having one of her robotic duplicates do so, which is why she usually has the robots do the talking.
    • In the Huntress feature, the mob enforcer Milo has a very prominent lisp that presents itself as a lot of ssssh-es at the beginning of words.

    Fan Works 
  • Godzilla fanfiction Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): According to the author, Viv and San's physical speaking voices in their primitive first hybridized form sound like the Gravemind from Halo 2, with a slight underlying hint of a masculine or feminine voice depending on which of the two is speaking. Although Vivienne's dialogue in scenes written from her P.O.V. is formatted fluidly, scenes told in transcript form heavily imply that she's actually speaking in a slow, halting manner with gasps and breaks like the Gravemind's speech.
    • Whenever San communicates with humans via his electronic voice projection, his voice comes through speaking in a stilted, halting manner with notable breaks. The effect disappears as the fic goes on, implicitly because he's getting used to communicating this way.
    • In the Start of Darkness-chronicling prequel "Damnatio Memoriae", San's speech is even more perpetually slow and slurred for a temporary time, immediately after his brain was cut open and rewired.

  • Apprentice and Pregnant: Mousestar had his throat slashed in a fight and, as a result, he talks with a pronounced stutter. It gets even worse when he's nervous.
  • In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic Asylum (Daemon of Decay) Rainbow Dash has a speech impediment and a stutter due to Childhood Brain Damage.
  • Harry in The Child of Azkaban possesses one of these when Bellatrix encouraged him to garnish his everyday speech with his parseltongue gift at a very young age.
  • A Diplomatic Visit: In the sequel Diplomat at Large, per canon, Grubber speaks with a noticeable lisp.
  • Candace from Do You Believe in Fairies? has a pronounced stutter that gets even worse when she's nervous. Julius' past bullying is a large reason behind the stutter.
  • In the Eleutherophobia series, ex-hosts with Post-Infestation Affective Blunting Syndrome tend to slur their words together or sound monotone, which Tom affectionately calls "zombie-mumble". The two ex-host children in THX 1138 hardly talk at all.
  • In Endings Yuna received brain damage after the the final battle of Yuki Yuna Is A Hero. This led to her having a stutter as well as memory issues.
  • In Gensokyo 20XX, we have Chen's Elmuh Fudd Syndwome, though by chapter 62 in Gensokyo 20XXV, she seems to have overcome this, however, Amoridere did state that, while Chen can say "L"s and "R"s correctly, she still has speech impediments in that she has a lisp and that her speech is a tad slurred but neither of which are that noticeable.
  • Minor character Aquei Ereth in The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World has a pronounced lisp. He's no dummy, though; he's the Circle's chief information officer, and is so dignified that no one would ever think to laugh at him for his lisp.
  • "Legends of the Lion Kings," a fanfic of The Lion King (1994), shows that when Mufasa was younger, he had a stuttering problem, and Scar teases him about it. The author mentions that they like the idea of a powerful and grand-speaking king having a problem with stuttering when they were younger before overcoming it.
  • Hiccup in Lost Boy tends to stutter when under stress or afraid.
  • Dan in Mass Effect: Murphy's Law has a really bad one influenced by his Asperger's Syndrome that causes him to repeat words or fail to say them entirely, though this doesn't usually prevent him from being understood. It goes away when he's under immediate situational stress, and went away permanently for Old Dan after the death of Sean in his original timeline.
  • Pippi is depicted as having a lisp in this Novelization of EarthBound Beginnings.
"I juth't knew th'umbody would come and th'ave me! I dunno what your name ith, but I know who you are! You're Mimmie and Minnie's big brother, that'th who!"
  • Early fanon from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic gave Derpy Hooves (also known as "Ditzy Doo", "Bright Eyes", or "Bubbles") a speech impediment, however to just what degree varied. It could range from a noticeable stutter to a speech disorder where she spoke incomprehensibly. Over time the portrayal died out in preference for her being The Ditz instead of Inspirationally Disadvantaged, though her referring to her fanon daughter as "muffin" is a remnant of the old fanon. One example of the old fanon is Today, Tomorrow, and Forever, in which Foal Protections Services takes away Derpy's daughter Dinky because of Derpy's disability making her unfit to be a single parent. Derpy speaks in gibberish (though she consistently calls Dinky "my muffin") but can write quite eloquently.
  • In Pokémpanions, Gyarados has a lisp because of her braces.
  • Derpy was born with one in the Pony POV Series that causes her to mix up words for sound-a-likes. If she gets worked up, it gets worse and can get to the point where it just becomes beings with vague relations to what she really means (IE, book=I know), at which point only her daughters can understand her. She takes diction classes and gets somewhat better, but she still struggles with it.
  • Prodigal Son: After Astrid breaks his nose, Snotlout speaks with a consonance so ridiculous it takes the real danger of his incompetently fatal teaching methods to take him seriously.
  • Ships Ahoy!: At four years old, Oscar has a noticeable stutter due to his Shrinking Violet nature. As he grows up, he loses the stutter, but it comes back just as quickly as it left when he gets wind that Opal is going to be hired into the Medical department, and then it's nearly gone for good by the time Olive arrives and is partnered with him, only reappearing when he becomes stressed or upset.
  • In the Hunger Games fanfiction Some Semblance of Meaning, our Shrinking Violet heroine Vale has a tendency to stammer when she's feeling nervous or scared. It's pretty difficult to intimidate anyone in the arena when your empty threats come out all stuttery.
  • In What Tomorrow Brings, Tom's speech is slurred at first after he's freed from his Yeerk.
  • The Palaververse: Mr Stripes Versus A Cthonic Horror: In the first chapter, Mr Stripes encounters a Diamond Dog that speaks Equish with a lot of "th", probably due to his "badly-crooked muzzle":
    “Up, dogth!” he barked with a long and badly-crooked muzzle, beckoning up with a paw, his waistcoat studded with little jewels and tools. “Itth Bridleway. Up and out and away, before ponieth get thuthpithiouth and everything goeth to thit.”
    “I… What were you doing down there?” said Mr Stripes, whose thought processes floundered when trying to parse ‘thuthpithiouth’ and who sought firmer ground for whatever this unhelpful distraction was.

    Film — Animation 
  • An American Tail has Gussie Mouseheimer.
    Honest John: Oh, a rally.
    Gussie Mouseheimer: "That's what I said! A wawwy!"
  • Antz: Z the ant, the main character, is known to have a stutter when he speaks and also has a slight lisp. Especially when he talks to General Mandible.
  • Finding Nemo: Kathy has a lisp. But she speaks more often in Finding Dory which in that film it is more noticeable. You can tell she has a lisp because of her big buck teeth like a bunny.
    • Darla, Dr. Sherman's "fish-killer" niece, also has this. The braces she's wearing doesn't help her with speaking much either.
  • Ice Age: Sid has a "lateral lisp". His voice actor claims that he gave him one based off the fact that real-life sloths store food in their mouths.
  • The Pebble and the Penguin: Hubie has a stutter. Especially when he sings the musical number "Sometimes I Wonder."
  • The Princess and the Goblin: Prince Froglip speaks with a lisp, especially when he threatens to tear out the humans thbbbt-ingernailthhhhs.
  • Rock-A-Doodle: Peepers the Mouse has a lateral lisp, which Snipes the Magpie makes fun of at one point.
    Peepers: My lithp, elevateth, and itholateths me, and maketh me a rare thpethimen.
  • The Secret Life of Pets: Norman, the guinea pig has a wet and spitty lisp when he talks.
  • Tangled: In a rare example of the protagonist, Rapunzel seems to have a small lisp.
  • Wreck-It Ralph: King Candy speaks with a lisp, although not constantly.

    Film — Live-Action 
  • Adele Hasn't Had Her Dinner Yet (Czechoslovakia, 1977): Baron Rupert von Kratzmar suffers from rhotacism. He pronounces his r's and ř's incorrectly at the back of his mouth. It's a fairly common Speech Impediment among Czech speakers. It's part of his disguise and Secret Identity. He speaks normally when he's only with his servant.
  • Late in ...And Your Name Is Jonah, Jenny and Connie attend a club for deaf adults. The ones who can speak almost all have a strong "deaf accent."
  • Marie-Sophie from Attention Bandits!. Unlike most examples, her stutter is presented as a charming quirk, rather than a disability.
  • Blazing Saddles: Lili Von Shtupp is German, she speaks English but with Just a Stupid Accent. Compounding this she pronounces all her Rs as Ws, e.g. a "A wed wose. How womantic."
  • Change of Habit: Julio has a severe stutter, which makes him feel isolated and like less of a man. Michelle works with him to improve it, and by the time he tries to rape her, he seems to be mostly over it, although he still doesn't like talking in complete sentences.
  • Chinatown: Evelyn Mulwray stutters whenever she mentions her f-father. This turns out to be a Chekhov's Gun.
  • K-k-k-Ken from A Fish Called Wanda. The kernel of an idea that created the film was a scene in which someone trying to interrogate a man with a terrible stutter.
  • In Friends with Benefits, Dylan is said to have stuttered as a child. His stutter resurfaces at one point.
  • Grandmother's House: The wife and son of the Sackett Family who visit David, Lynn, and their grandparents during the movie, seem to speak with what sound like lisps.
  • The King's Speech focuses on the real-life stutter of King George VI, and the unconventional psychologist cum speech therapist who helped him to deal with it.
  • Lady in the Water: Cleveland's stutter is an important part of his characterization.
  • In Like Normal People, Roger stutters and has trouble pronouncing his R's, and Virginia has a very nasally voice, with lots of uptalk.
  • In Mickey One, Mickey eats breakfast at a mission where a man with a severe stutter reads to him from the Bible.
  • Monty Python's Life of Brian features Pontius Pilate and Biggus Dickus. The former has Elmuh Fudd Syndwome and the latter has a pronounced lisp.
    Pilate: This man commands a cwack legion! He wanks as high as anyone in Wome!
  • Ocean's Eleven: Livingson Dell seems to stutter.
  • Billy Bibbit stutters in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It turns out all he needed was to get laid.
  • Pan's Labyrinth has a resistance fighter suffer from one. The evil Captain Vidal even taunts him about it, claiming that if he can count to three without stuttering, he would be free to go. It's one of the most horrifying moments in the movie.
  • Paulie: The titular bird's beloved owner Marie was a severe stutterer as a child, which was strongly hinted to have been caused by her overbearing father.
  • In Peter Rabbit, Flopsy speaks with a lisp, except when she's older at the end and it turns out she's the Narrator All Along.
  • The Princess Bride has the priest (referred to as "The Impressive Clergyman" in the credits): "Mawwidge! Mawwidge is what bwings us togevah today!" In the book, it's compounded by him being somewhat senile and deaf as a post.
  • Psycho: Norman Bates has an occasional stammer. Initially, it adds to his early dorky charm, and seems to be due to nerves. It becomes more unsettling later, when it becomes apparent that Norman stammers over significant words.
  • Stutterer is a short film about a man whose severe stutter makes it very difficult for him to communicate and threatens his budding Internet romance.
  • We Too Together: Rob has a severe stutter as a child, which makes him a Bully Magnet. It mostly goes away with the help of speech therapy.

    Jokes 
  • A guy calls his buddy, the horse rancher, and says he's sending a friend over to look at a horse. His buddy asks, "How will I recognize him?" "That's easy; he's a midget with a speech impediment." So, the midget shows up, and the guy asks him if he's looking for a male or female horse. "A female horth." So he shows him a prized filly. "Nith lookin horth. Can I thee her eyeth"? So the guy picks up the midget and he gives the horse's eyes the once over. "Nith eyeth, can I thee her earzth"? So he picks the little fella up again, and shows him the horse's ears. "Nith earzth, can I see her mouf"? The rancher is getting pretty ticked off by this point, but he picks him up again and shows him the horse's mouth. "Nice mouf, can I see her twat"? Totally mad as fire at this point, the rancher grabs him under his arms and rams the midget's head as far as he can up the horse's fanny, pulls him out and slams him on the ground. The midget gets up, sputtering and coughing. "Perhapth I should rephrase that. Can I thee her wun awound a widdlebit"?
  • A man with a horrible stutter is asking for directions to Maple street from a boy he saw on the street. "D-d-d-d-d.. do y-y-ou kn-n-n-ow whuh-whuh-where M-m-m-aple St... treet Ih-ih-is?" The boy just repeatedly shakes his head. Finally the man wanders off. A woman walks up to the boy and says "I've seen you around here - don't you live on Maple street? Why didn't you tell him?" The boy stutters "I-i-i-i c-c-c-c-c-couldn't"
  • An old standby is lamenting just how cruel someone had to be to put an S in "lisp".
  • A man goes to a cafe, and his waiter has a hunchback. "How much for a thcrewdrivah?" the man asks. "$25," says the waiter. "A tequila thunrithe?" "$30." "And how much ith a martini?" "$20." After the man finishes his dinner, he sets a tip on the table, saying, "I'm giving you thome ethtra for not making fun of my lithp." The waiter smiles and says, "You didn't make fun of my hump." "Oh, that! The pritheth are tho high in thith dump I thought it wath your ath!"
  • How do you think the unthinkable? With an ithberg. (How do you sink the unsinkable? With an iceberg.)
  • The Mighty Thor is galloping along on his horse, waving his hammer and hamming it up as usual, roaring "I'M THOR!" So his horse replies, "Oth courth you're thore. You put the thaddle on the wrong way, thilly."
  • A skydiving instructor tells one of his students, "When you jump out of the plane, count to ten. Then pull your parachute." "W-w-what w-w-was th-th-the n-n-numb-b-ber ag-g-gain?" "Two."

    Literature 
  • The Alice Network: Eve speaks with a stutter, which gets stronger when she's scared and weaker when she's drunk or angry. Although it’s genuine, she still uses it to her advantage in her spy work via Obfuscating Stupidity.
  • Anne of Green Gables: Anne's youngest child, Rilla, has a lisp. She outgrew it by the time she was fourteen, though in times of nervousness or stress she often relapsed.
  • In Anything but Typical, the bully Eric Doyle can't pronounce his R's.
  • In the Bardic Voices series by Mercedes Lackey, the character Kestrel/Jonny has a stutter (except when singing) due to a fever and a really awful scare he had as a child, though he eventually manages to overcome it.
  • Carla from Jack Casserly's Caesar's Coin has a strong stutter.
  • Darkest Powers: Chloe stutters terribly when nervous.
  • Discworld: Subverted/Lampshaded, where Igors are expected to lisp, and almost all of them do so. The females don't do it as often, and some younger, "modern" Igors also drop the lisp on occasion.
  • Doctor Who Eighth Doctor Adventures: Karl Sadeghi, in the novel The Year of Intelligent Tigers, has a slight stutter. A few sections written from his perspective also seem to suggest he has synesthesia. So he's a bit of an odd duck.
  • Erast Fandorin started stuttering after the first book; the stutter disappeared in the more critical moments, unnerving his conversants.
  • Eye Contact: Derek, a boy from Morgan's social skills group, stutters so badly he can hardly talk.
  • Felidae On The Road features a Somali cat named Ambrosius who can write by dipping his claws into ink and carefully scratching words on paper, and he stammers all the time. He's even stuttering when he's dying from his wounds inflicted by the wildcats.
  • The Gamekeepers Lady has Frederica as an example of a Love Interest. She always stumbles on the protagonist's name ("R-Robert"), which doesn't stop them from falling in love.
  • Harry Potter: P-p-p-poor p-p-p-pathetic P-p-p-professor Quirrell! Subverted when it's revealed at the end this is an Obfuscating Disability.
  • How to Train Your Dragon: In the original books, Toothless has a prominent stutter, and combines it with Third-Person Person speech and a bit of You No Take Candle, leading to sentences such as “Toothless help you. B-b-but NOT because me being n-n-nice or anything yucky....If he’s feeling particularly feisty, though, Toothless will drop the stutter. Eventually, by the time the movies came out, the stutter and third-person speech became Fanon translations for some people translating Toothless’ speech as a Mythology Gag- though it was slightly flanderized.
  • "Stuttering" Bill in Stephen King's IT.
  • Jacky Ha Ha tends to stutter under stress. She hates it when people call it a speech impediment, though.
  • The French Sci-Fi novel Malevil has Momo. Because of severe mental handicaps, Momo speaks with a severe slur and extra "H" sounds. For example, "Leave me alone, for God's sake!" comes out as "Heevheeahone, hor Hodhake!!"
  • Molly Moon: The villain of the third book, the Maharaja of Waqt, often unintentionally speaks in spoonerisms, meaning that he says many words "frack to bunt".
  • Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest stutters. His name even sounds like a stutter.
  • In Otto And The Flying Twins by Charlotte Heptie, all the Karmidees (the magical people) have a very specific impediment: they cannot pronounce the word "lemon". This serves as a way to distinguish them from "normies" (i. e. ordinary people).
  • Leda from M. P. Shiel's The Purple Cloud pronounces her r's as l's.
  • Emmanuel from Boris Akunin's Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel speaks with a lisp.
  • A character in the Redwall book Taggerung has a stutter, until he learns to overcome it, mainly because he doesn't stutter when he's singing.
  • Shards of Honor: Cordelia Naismith briefly acquires a stutter due to post-traumatic stress; it goes away when she resolves her issues and takes action.
  • Skate the Thief: Twitch has a noticeable stutter, which might be related to the nervous jerks and shuffles that he exhibits.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire: The Psycho for Hire Vargo Hoat, captain of the Brave Companions, has a swollen tongue from some unknown malady that causes him to lisp, which is represented in his dialogue. He's occasionally mocked behind his back for "slobbering" his words. Jaime jokes that the reason he lied about Brienne's family fortune in sapphires is because he wanted to hear Vargo say "thappireth."
  • In The Thrawn Trilogy of Star Wars novels, Leia meets a Wookiee with a speech impediment. However, his particular problem actually makes it easier for non-Wookiees to understand his speech, so he has a job with foreign relations.
  • TimeRiders: Joseph Olivera has a horrible stutter that flares up when he's nervous. Waldstein finds it amusing.
  • Evie Jenner from Lisa Kleypas' Wallflowers series has a quite pronounced stutter, which is partly the result of her unhappy life and abuse. After her marriage in "Devil in Winter", it becomes much less prominent, but it never completely goes away.
  • In Wielding a Red Sword, Mym (who later takes over as War) has a stutter when speaking and therefore sings in order to avoid it.
  • The Witchlands: Iseult stutters when she's nervous. She used to stutter all the time, but learned to control it, so it's a sign that she's incapable of keeping calm.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Breaking Bad: Walter "Flynn" White Jr. — notable because the actor actually has cerebral palsy, although Flynn's condition is actually significantly worse than R. J. Mitte's (Mitte doesn't need crutches, for a start). When it comes to the associated speech issues, it's clear that Mitte is exaggerating Flynn's impediment; Mitte's natural speech is clearly that of someone with mild cerebral palsy, speaking very fluidly with a bit of a "thick tongue" effect (since cerebral palsy affects muscle control and the tongue is a muscle), while Flynn also stutters a bit.
  • In the Philippine comedy sketch TV series Bubble Gang, Cecilio Sasuman, or "Tetilio Tatuman", has a speech impediment: he pronounces the letters "C" and "S" as the letter "T". One of the pieces he spoke is titled "Sino ang dapat sisihin?"/"Tino ang dapat titihin?" note  His speeches upon saying it are hilariously shocking for a Filipino. Watch one of his speeches here.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • Tara stutters when she's nervous in her earliest appearances in the fourth season, notably when we first meet her in "Hush", and when Faith-in-Buffy grills her in "Who Are You?" She later gains enough self-confidence to overcome the stutter, and face down other characters. (Willow noticeably stuttered in the first season as well, and occasionally tripped over syllables well into the series, though any impediment was almost gone by the last season.) Tara's stutter was clearly a side-effect of her abusive childhood as it gets worse when her family comes to town.
    • Giles has a slight stammer, as well. Anthony Stewart Head has stated in interviews that Looping Lines for this was so irritating he'll never play a character with a speech impediment again.
  • El Chavo del ocho: La Popis originally spoke like if she had Cleft lip, this was abandoned after a concerned father told Chespirito that kids in the school were mocking his son who had Cleft lip because of that, so after the first two seasons Popis started to speak normally.
  • Degrassi: Spinner seems to have a mild speech impediment, although it might have to do with his tongue piercing.
  • Doctor Who: The Third Doctor had a mild lisp, because his actor (Jon Pertwee) had one.
  • Game of Thrones: One of the traces Locke retains from his book counterpart (Vargo Hoat) is the lisp, though his is less noticeable.
  • Tina on Glee—at least for part of the first season. Her stutter was dropped because it turned out she was faking it to push people away.
  • Bobby Sherman's Jeremy Bolt and his stutter on Here Come the Brides.
  • The title character in I, Claudius suffers from a stutter.
  • M*A*S*H: One patient that passed through the camp was bullied by his squad mates for his stutter, to which Major Winchester quickly came to the man's defense before encouraging him and sending him off with some reading material "fitting for his intelligence" (the other soldiers had been calling him "stupid"). As it turns out, Charles' beloved sister has a similar stutter and he couldn't help but relate.
  • Monty Python's Flying Circus: In the sketch "Travel Agent", Mr. Smoketoomuch has a speech impediment: he can't pronounce the letter "C", instead pronouncing it as the letter "B". He can get around it by replacing the "C" with a "K" for words with hard "C"s. It's all due to a trauma he suffered when he was attacked by a Siamese bat as a sbool boy.
  • Arkwright from Open All Hours.
  • The TV presenter Jonathan Ross famously has a mild rhotacism which gets exaggerated by impressionists, and maintains a sense of humour about it. On his guest appearance as a gameshow host on Only Fools and Horses, the scriptwriters went out of their way to insert as many words beginning with R into his dialogue as possible.
    • Speaking of Only Fools and Horses and rhotacism, Raquel finds out to her cost why her singing partner's signature song is "Delilah". It doesn't have any Rs in it. When she persuaded him to diversify his wepertoire, they ended up singing "Cwying", followed by (off-screen, described in Raquel's rant at Del Boy who legged it halfway through the performance, which was for a notorious gangster) "Congwatulations", "Please Welease Me" and "The Gween Gween Gwass of Home".
      • And that was followed by a medley of Wock 'n' Woll!
  • On The Pajanimals, Squacky (a duck) sometimes speaks with a lisp.
  • Quantum Leap: The episode "Trilogy, Part 2" has Sam adopting the stutter of the man that he leaped into for nearly the entire episode.
  • Salute Your Shorts: Donkeylips speaks with a very pronounced lisp, which his actor, Michael Ray Bower, also has.
  • In the BBC adaptation of The Scarlet Pimpernel, cute Lord Tony Dewhurst played by Jamie Bamber stutters adorably.
  • Sesame Street has Baby Bear. "Powwidge, powwidge, powwidge..."
  • Speechless: J.J. has cerebral palsy and either can't speak vocally or is uncomfortable doing so. To communicate he uses a head-mounted laser pointer and a board filled with words and letters to form sentences.
  • Succession: In an unusual main character example, Kendall Roy has a stutter/stammer that becomes prominent whenever he's anxious and turns his dialogue into "uh uh uh"s.
  • Supernatural: Alistair has a lisp. Given that he has in two different hosts, the demon itself is apparently the one that has it. That or he took the time to specifically possess people with a lisp for some reason. It in no way detracts from how terrifying he is.
  • That's So Raven features a teacher who pronounces his "P"s hard enough to eject saliva, which causes him wet students' faces and short out a microphone when speaking at an assembly. And God help you if he sees you at lunch and you're eating pepperoni pizza.
  • Tumbletown Tales: Tumbleweed the hamster speaks like this.
  • The Umbrella Academy: Diego had a stutter as a child. It now only comes out when he is very upset.
  • There's also Rick in the The Young Ones, who can't pronounce his R's. Presumably it's to emphasize how childish he is.

    Music 
  • The singer Grimes has a quite notitheable lithp; she stated that she "likes it", and has no desire to correct it.
  • "K-K-K-Katy".
  • Verse four of The Scaffold's "Lily the Pink":
    Johnny Hammer had a tuh-tuh-tuh-terrible stammer
    He could hardly suh-suh-suh-say a word
    Then they guh-guh-guh-gave him medicinal compound
    And now he's suh-suh-suh-seen but never heard
  • Fox (UK)'s "S-s-s Single Bed".
  • "Stuttering Lovers".
  • Invoked by Busta Rhymes in the TechN9ne song "Worldwide Choppers":
    They loving everything until I got 'em stuttering-stupid
    You hear 'em now?
    “D-d-d-d-don’t do-do-do-do it
    P-P-P-Please
    Wh-wh-wh-why you gotta t-try us
    W-w-w-w-we already know that you be the nicest.”
  • Sam Harrish, the lead vocalist of X Ambassadorsh, also hash a noticeable lisp, particularly with wordsh ending with "s". This is more obvioush in Renegadesh and Torchesh. Fansh comment that the lisp addsh to the appeal.

    Mythology & Religion 
  • Older Than Feudalism: While not present in adaptions of the stories in question, The Bible notes that Moses had a terrible speech impediment. Extra-biblical works say it was brought on in infancy by his placing a hot coal in his mouth that burned his lips and tongue.

    Professional Wrestling 
  • Less noticeable but Kurt Angle and Matt Morgan have lisps as well, Morgan even had a stuttering gimmick
  • ECW's B-B-Bubba Ray D-D-Dudley, who also did this in the early days of his WWE career. D'Von would slap him in the back of the head to allow him to speak normally.
    • Former World Heavyweight Champion Jack Swagger, and former WWE champ Mike "The Miz" Mizanin have pretty noticeable lisps, but they're usually ignored.
      • "Usually" being the key term here.
      The fact that you named it the Thwagger Thoaring Eagle makes it especially THTUPID!
  • Jeckles The Jester tends to stutter during his promos, something he's seemingly come to terms with as he also laughs at it.
  • Bobby Lashley has a very pronounced lisp that often makes his speech a bit incomprehensible.
    "They thay your name ith Finlay, and you love to fight. I thay your name ith Finlay, and you're a BATHTURD!

    Tabletop Games 
  • In Promethean: The Created, Frankenstein's Monster stutters. The game notes that many of his lineage have trouble with speech after their creation, as do the Tammuz. Most eventually get past it.
  • Orks and Trolls in Shadowrun have trouble speaking most languages because of their tusks. Eventually they develop their own artificial language that's difficult to enunciate properly without tusks.

    Theatre 
  • In The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Logainne speaks with a strong lisp.
  • Fuddy Meers has two examples: Limping Man speaks with the classic lisp, and Gertie's words come out oddly due to her aphasia (she provides the title "Funny Mirrors").
  • Hamlet: In certain interpretations, Ophelia does have a lisp, and some of her lines actually reflect this (for example, "twice two months" is understood as "two-es...two months). This gives Hamlet's line ("...you lisp, you nickname God's creatures...") a second, literal meaning.
  • In The Music Man, Winthrop has a lisp.
  • In Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad, Jonathan stutters when he's feeling nervous, which is most of the time.
  • Arthur from Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon has, among other things, a stutter as a symptom of his epilepsy.

    Radio 
  • Kremmen of the Star Corp by Kenny Everett. The evil Thargoid aliens have three lips, so this is a Running Gag. This is stated as the reason why the Thargoids drink tea. "You try asking for llllager and llllime with llllips llllike these!"

    Roleplay 
  • Ivy from Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues has a pronounced stutter that gets worse when she's anxious or excited, which is most of the time. It's mentioned in her backstory that it used to be much worse until she was able to see a speech therapist for help.
  • Quite a few characters in Survival of the Fittest have this problem:
    • Sierra "Thierra" Manning (v4) has a lithp due to a gap in her teeth.
    • Marilyn Wilson (Program) h-h-h-has a p-p-p-pretty b-b-bad st-st-stutter, most likely in part due to the bullying she constantly receives.
    • Holly Herchenroder (SOTF-TV) ith another lithper.
    • Kami Steele ('Fe Program) has a problem wiff pronouncing "th" sounds. 'Fis is part of 'fe reason why people won't take her seriously.
    • It's implied that the reason why Marcus Roddy (v1) is The Quiet One is that he's a horrible stutterer.
    • Haruka Watanabe (v4) is another st-st-stutterer, due to English not being her first language. It's s-said in her profile that she has a problem w-w-with "w"s, "s"s, and "t"s in particular.
    • Anna Chase (v4) is... erm, y-yet another st-stutterer, and is ov-overall unsure when she... um, t-talks.
    • Dorian Pello (one of the terrorists up until he shoots Danya and joins STAR) is y-y-y-yet an-an-another st-stutterer. T-to be f-fair, it's not like he has the best boss. He even does an announcement at one point in v3, and Hilarity Ensues, particularly when he mispronounces Blood Boy's real name (Nathaniel Harris) as "Natanya Hartless".

    Video Games 
  • Battle Fantasia: Marco pronounces the R as a W.
  • Borderlands 2 has you doing a series of missions in the town of Overlook for the town's administrator, Karima, who speaks with a stutter due to suffering from skull-shivers like everyone else in town. It goes away after you deliver medicine to the town, however it was Retconned to be a permanent affliction unrelated to the shivers after a fan messaged Gearbox thanking them for giving people with stutters some positive representation. And indeed, when Karima appears in the Claptastic Voyage DLC for Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!, well before Overlook's skull-shivers problem, she still has her stutter.
  • Brave Fencer Musashi: Ed has a stuttering problem where he actually spells out his stutters in a written letter.
  • Breath of Fire IV has Scias, who speaks with a pronounced stutter. In the original Japanese version, his speech was slurred from being drunk, but they changed it for the English translation.
  • N.Brio used to be one in the early Crash Bandicoot series, but was removed later on, at least if his voice over in Crash: Mind Over Mutant is any indication.
  • Grim Matchstick of Cuphead has a stutter in his death screens. This is a reference to famed animator Grim Natwick, who himself had a pronounced stutter.
  • Dawn of War: Indrick Boreale's Narmtastic speech impediment has made him the biggest meme in the Warhammer 40k fanbase.
  • Janosch from Chaos On Deponia, leader of a lazy, ineffectual resistance group, has one, allegedly from eating too much chili in a chili-eating contest and injuring his tongue. His impediment is comical enough that Rufus can't stop laughing at it, which offends him greatly, to the point that one of the puzzles of the game is pitching a battle strategy to him that won't trigger his speech impediment when he reads it back to rest of the group.
  • Scrivir the Wanderer of Demon's Souls has a noticeable stutter.
  • Devil May Cry 4: Agnus also stutters, and Nero mocks him for it once. It doesn't seem to be an issue in his angel form, however. His daughter Nico in Devil May Cry 5 also has a stutter, but much milder.
  • 10 of Spades, the rookie member of 1st Recon in Fallout: New Vegas has a pretty strong stutter in his dialogue. He generally doesn't mind his squadmates joking about it because he sees it as friendly ribbing, though if the player keeps doing it he'll get angry and refuse to speak to you any further.
  • Funtime Freddy from Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location has one. If anything it makes him more terrifying then not.
  • Jagged Alliance 2:
    • Tim "Gumpy" Hillman speaks with a very phlegmy lisp, to emphasize that he's a university geek trying to make it in mercenary work.
    • Thorton "Bubba" Jones speaks with a halting stutter that makes him pause in the middle of even short phrases.
  • LISA has Rando. An extremely powerful warlord who speaks with a heavy stutter, which serves as a hint to his identity as Dusty, Brad's adopted son.
  • Copy X MK-II in Mega Man Zero 3 occasionally stuttered because he Came Back Wrong, because Dr. Weil intended him to be a total pawn, so he only made a partial rebuild of Copy X and then waited for Zero to fight and kill him, thus Weil become a Dragon Ascendant immediately afterwards. In the Japanese version, he randomly alternated between hiragana and katakana.
  • Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots: Sunny stuttered a lot at the beginning of the game but gradually loses the stutter as she grew more confident. Her stutter came from the fact that she was raised by a computer most of her life.
  • In Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters, the photographic child Luna speaks this way. Its all an act; Luna is really a genderless puppet-warship who can speak normally when not pretending to be an innocent child.
  • Rengoku:
    • Mars in the first game speaks by colliding words.
      "Talking-is-irrelevant. It-only-delays-progress. Disengage-your-speech-circuits-and-switch-to-battle-mode-like-the-other-combatants."
    • In the second game Briareos is a Blood Knight that constantly stutters and repeats his thoughts.
      "I-I-I-I'mgonnadestroyeverythingI'mgonnadest... Uh, y-y-y-yeh, y-y-yer right."
  • In Sabres of Infinity, Sergeant Hernandes suffers from this, which is needless to say, an unfortunate trait for a Drill Sergeant Nasty to have.
  • In Silent Hill 4 the character Jasper speaks with a huge stutter. At least it ends when he turns into a King Mook and harasses Henry as a gurgling ghost.
  • If you listen closely, Classic Tails in Sonic Generations has a lisp. He lost it as he grew.
  • Super Robot Wars: This is the Woolsey'd form of Lamia Loveless' broken-ken g-grammar prob-rob-lem. Because-cause, well... while i-in the Japan-pan-ese version it's-it's easy to-to mess up gramma-grammatical sentences, it's al-al-al-almost im-impossi-possible-ble in English-lish.
    • Einst... Alfimi... speaks... very slowly... Not in... the way of... William Shatner... though...
  • In Thief II: The Metal Age, Father Karras has both a very high-pitched voice as well as an impediment that makes him sound like he's talking with a bunch of marbles in his mouth. Despite this, he is a highly respected person by the elite of the city, and his followers (the Mechanists) practically worship him. One could even call him charismatic.
  • Lammy from Um Jammer Lammy has a habit of stuttering on account of being a nervous wreck 90% of the time.
  • Julius, one of the thin bloods in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, stutters badly.
  • Dave the Brave, from Sir Basil Pike Public School, has a stutter. The player character can actually get rewarded for mocking it, despite the game's supposed anti-bullying moral.
  • Parodied in Zozzled, where "Dishonest" Donnie Cantaloupe's particular impediment involves saying the exact opposite of what he means.
    Donnie: You shouldn't be careful, miss. The last agent who tried to shut me down is still alive and completely unharmed.

    Web Animation 

    Web Comics 
  • Dr. Right, the alternate Dr. Light in Bob and George gets an aneuwysm whenever someone makes a big deal about his impediment.
  • In Camp Weedonwantcha, it's eventually revealed that the reason why Brian rarely speaks is because he has a noticeable stutter.
  • In DNA, Orion gets picked on because of his lisp which is caused by his protruding fangs. In the very first segment of the comic Sirius also speaks like this but only because of his mouth being injured, which he recovers from.
  • Max's girlfriend Calixta in Ennui GO! speaks with a stutter. It's eventually revealed that her mother Xierdra also has a stutter, though it only comes out if she gets really flustered.
  • Wanda acquires one of these in Erfworld from the backlash of a failed spell.
  • Indigo in Gloomverse has a lisp.
  • Most characters in Homestuck have some sort of odd quirk to their typing styles to also illustrate how they speak. Sollux, for instance, always uses the number 2 instead of the letter S - and has a lisp. Sollux has since dropped the lisp after Karkat (accidentally) knocked his fangs out. He's not too broken up about this, since he can now speak normally.
  • In Sister Claire, Clementine, Catharine's sister and known as The Witch Queen/Bright One shows a strong stutter in flashbacks. She eventually learned how to use sign language from a deaf member of her Ragtag Bunch of Misfits as an easier way to communicate. Because of its association with Clementine it's something of a Wham Line when Claire, who's her Reincarnation, speaks with one too.
  • Ismene in The Water Phoenix King has a slight stammer. It's unknown if this is related to the mystery of her origin in any way, or if this is just part of her Shrinking Violet personality.

    Web Original 
  • Dragon Ball Z Abridged's Freiza has this issue when he's rebuilt as a cyborg, in a 'record is skipping' sense; the joke in it is eventually his 'program' gives up and substitutes another word.
    Freiza: There's not even a Space Best Buy-Buy-Buy-Circuit City.
    Freiza: (reading the intro) Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Ball GT-GT-GT-GT-T-T-T-T-T-Absalom.
    Freiza: We already have a volunteer-teer-teer-dead man.
    Freiza: Our little Super Saiyan is dead-dead-dead-cadaverific.
  • In an unusual choice in a primarily audible medium, podcast Fat, French and Fabulous' Jessica has both a stammer and a lisp.
  • Iriana Estchell of Ilivais X has a fairly prevalent stutter. Oddly enough, it doesn't seem to be attributed to the absolutely horrid life she had prior to the story, as it's there no matter how high or low she is, or how eloquent of a speech she's giving. She still thinks it makes her seem vulnerable though (it kinda does), which she has a BIG issue with.
  • The Nostalgia Critic trips over his words a lot when he's freaked out. Doug has this trait as well so it's probably not faked, but all his other Motor Mouthed characters don't have a problem.
  • After Characterization Marches On, Dartz from Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series ends up suffering from a pretty bad case of Elmuh Fudd Syndwome. This isn't helped by Dartz' incredibly bizarre accent as it leads to him mispronouncing his words to the point where they come off as sexual slang (such as saying "dew" when he really meant "duel").
    Dartz: Deeeeeew!
    Raphael: ...Are you saying "do" or "duel"?
    Dartz: DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWW!

    Western Animation 
  • Arthur: Reoccuring background character Maria has never spoken a word in the series. In her Lower-Deck Episode the reason given is that she is embarrassed by her pronounced stutter and thus canonically only ever speaks around her best friend. She's visiting a speech therapist but it's not easy to better her speech. Due to being put on the school news she has to speak more, and by the end of the episode she's learned to control much of her stuttering.
  • As Told by Ginger: Brandon has a a lisp which Carl finds very annoying. It doesn't help Brandon insists on talking in a high-pitched, sing-songy voice most of the time.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender: Zuko has a lisp. It's pretty noticeable in the episode "The Western Air Temple," where Zuko is awkwardly trying to join the group.
    • Also in "The Firebending Masters."
      "I never imagined the Thun Warriors thivilization was thecretly alive!"
    • And in "The Southern Air Temple".
      "I underethtimated him once!"
    • Asami from Sequel Series The Legend of Korra also has a slight lisp as shown in "Venom of the Red Lotus" when she comforts Korra and during her letter reading scene in "Korra Alone".
  • The Bagel and Becky Show: Becky speaks with a noticeable lisp. It's worth noting that her lisp is also that of her voice actress Nikki Payne, who possesses a cleft palate.
  • Black Dynamite: Brother Minister That Bastard Kurtis (son of the late That Frog Kurtis) has a very mechanical stutter when speaking, almost like Max Headroom.
  • Blue Eye Samurai. Rebellious Princess Akemi spends most of Season One running away from her marriage to the shogun's second son, said to be an abusive monster who kills his wives and won't even deign to speak to women. When Akemi gets him alone, however, it's revealed that he's actually silent to conceal his stutter, while the stories of his brutality are invented by his mother and her servants to terrify his wives. Akemi, having learnt something of how to bend men to her will by then, coaxes him into being at ease with her so he doesn't have to put up a tough facade. He's later shown reciting poetry while making love to her, with no trace of a stutter.
  • Bob's Burgers: Jimmy Jr. has quite a pronounced lisp, though this does not stop his popularity at school. The only time it is brought up as a negative is when Tina decides to win him over by mocking him.
  • Bunsen Is a Beast: Amanda has a lateral lisp due to her Braces of Orthodontic Overkill. In one episode, she meets a security guard named Steve Stevenson with the same problem.
  • Codename: Kids Next Door: Leaky Leona, an ugly classmate at Gallagar Elementary, has a lot of trouble speaking properly. Not only does she always pronounce s as "th", but she also stutters and sometimes even spits while she is talking. This is actually justified since she is Really 700 Years Old and never got out of her braces.
  • Count Duckula speaks with the mixed impediments of Porky Pig and Daffy Duck in his Danger Mouse appearances.
  • In the Classic Disney Shorts, Donald Duck and his three nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie all speak in a raspy voice that sounds like quacking. Donald's voice is so distinctive, in order to preserve it, the same voice actor dubbed Donald's voice in every single language with the aid of phonetic scripts. The end result is that Donald is about equally hard to understand in all languages. This trait is significantly toned down with the triplets in DuckTales (1987) and entirely absent in Quack Pack, but Donald's voice remains the same, and is portrayed more like an in-universe, character-specific speech impediment. Huey, Dewey, and Louie went back to sounding exactly like Donald in Mickey Mouse Works and House of Mouse, but again had no impediment at all in DuckTales (2017).
  • The Dreamstone: Urpgor speaks with a terrible lisp, which wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't constantly making (Pfft!) random thoundth in between.
  • Fangbone! from his show of the same name speaks with some sort of lateral lisp as explained in the episode The Cavity of Terror when he battles Toothsbane at the end of this episode. "I learnth that you can overcome fear with the greather fear of lothing fwiendth. And pluth, I got thith delithiouth orb of thweetneth."
  • Freaktown: Princess Boo-Boo is cast a spell by Sparkles in the episode Princess Blourgh-Blourgh to be an alien that has a lisp. Not only that, Sparkles is shown to have a lisp.
  • Jelly Jamm: Goomo has a noticeable lisp.
  • Jem: Jerrica mispronounces "very". It's probably her voice actress having a speech impediment though instead of an intentional choice.
  • Kaeloo: The title character's lisp — albeit relatively mild — is frequently made fun of by the other characters, as is the fact that she's always spraying copious amounts of saliva everywhere when she talks. In the original French version, she not only has a classic lisp, but also substitutes a "Z-" or "S-" sound in place of "J-" or "Ch-".
    Kaeloo: I do not have a lisp!
    Mr. Cat: You're right, it's a total impedement.
  • The Loud House: Lisa Loud speaks with a lisp.
  • Looney Tunes has Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, and Sylvester the Cat. Daffy and Sylvester both lisp, Elmer is a textbook example of rhotacism, and Porky stammers. ("T-T-T-That's all, folks!")
    • In one very early cartoon, Porky's stuttering was so bad, he actually stuttered when writing his name.
    • In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Daffy rather hypocritically (especially given his extensive catalog working with Porky Pig) complains about Donald. "This is the last time I work with anyone with a speech impediment!"
    • Spooky, the ghost in the Cool Cat cartoon "Big Game Haunt" speaks in Elmer Fudd-ese.
    • Quite a few of Mel Blanc's characters, in fact. If you've ever wondered what Mel Blanc actually sounds like, it's Sylvester without the lisp.
  • Mack & Moxy: Shelfish Sheldon speaks with something of a lisp.
  • Metalocalypse: William Murderface talks with a very thick lateral lisp, to the point you may need subtitles. To a lesser extent Charles suffers from mild cluttering.
  • The Mighty B!: Bessie Higgenbottom lisps, except she doesn't wear braces, and it's more dragging on certain syllables.
  • Mighty Ducks: The Animated Series: Tanya sputtered badly during most of her speaking, but mostly when she tried to explain something.
  • Mixels: Splasho has a lisp, thanks to the water stored in his mouth.
  • Mr Krbec and his Animals: Kocanda the Jackdaw suffers from rhotacism and rhotacism bohemicus — she's unable to pronounce consonants r and ř correctly (two contrasting alveolar trills, an apical trill and a laminal trill). It's a fairly common speech impediment in real life among Czech speakers; those consonants are incorrectly pronounced in the back of the throat. Stereotypical for absent-minded p-rrr-ofesso-rrr-s, sma-rrr-t and eage-rrr cha-rrr-act-rrr-s. Kocanda is very smart, assiduous and always eager to help.
  • My Little Pony:
    • In My Little Pony (G3), nearly everyone had a catchphrase, and some of the catchphrases could border on Tourette's-level with how frequently they were used. Most noticeably, Thistle Whistle couldn't talk without randomly stopping to make whistling noises. She was the most temperamental of the pegasus team, but it really costs you badass points to interrupt a snide comment with whistling.
    • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has Twist's lisp (exaggerated in fandom to the point that she's nearly The Unintelligible, but still pretty bad in the show.) Fleetfoot, the Wonderbolt, also has one. Not nearly as bad, but noticeable, and you can even hear her trying not to do it by overemphasizing S sounds to get them right. For example, "Soarin,' pick up the pace!" becomes "SSSoarin,' pick up the pathe!" Definitely not a quirk of the actress, because none of Andrea Libman's other characters do it.
  • Nature Cat: When Nature Cat was a kitten, he used to have 2 speech impediments. He had a lisp and rhotacism so his catchphrase "Tally Ho" would sound like "Tawwy Ho". This is heard in the episode "Call it a Night".
  • PAW Patrol: In the episode "Pups Save a Toof", Chase develops a lisp when he knocks a fang loose.
  • Peanuts: Linus van Pelt had a rather thick lisp in the first couple of Charlie Brown TV specials, due to his voice actor being a school-age child who may not have had any front teeth at the time.
  • Pinky and the Brain: Rob Paulsen voiced Pinky with a speech impediment because he thought the mouse would have difficulty speaking properly with those huge front teeth (this is most pronounced in the earliest episodes).
  • Plasmo: Brucho has a thick lateral lisp, which highly contrasts the heavy and threatening armor he always wears.
  • Popeye has quite the speech "impedimink", often inexplicably adding 'sk' (and in some cases, Pluralses) to the end of words, mumbling, and "mispronounc-king" words. Though he isn't as unintelligible as Family Guy makes him out to be.
  • The Powerpuff Girls: Princess Morbucks mispronounces her "s"' as "-th".
  • Rick and Morty: The titular characters both have a noticeable stutter that cause them to repeat words multiple times in sentences.
  • The Secret Show: There was an episode where Victor Volt spoke with a lisp for the entire episode much to Anita Knight's disapproval because Dr. Hypno caused him to have his face numb and talk with a lateral lisp.
  • Doc Croc from Simsala Grimm has a stutter. It seems to get worse when he gets nervous.
  • Snooper and Blabber: Blabber Mouse slurs his "S"'s when he talks.
  • South Park has Timmy and Jimmy. Timmy is mentally disabled and can only say a few words (most notably his own name) and Jimmy has a st-st—a st-st—a stuh-uttering problem.
  • Super Secret Secret Squirrel: When Morocco Mole loses his front gold tooth in the episode "Goldflipper", he's left with a glaring lisp that Secret lampshades, to Morocco's irritation.
  • Often characters who wear braces or night braces have lisps as well in cartoons (for example, Beth in Total Drama)
  • Winnie the Pooh:

    Real Life 
  • Both Gillian Anderson and Chris Carter have slight lisps, if you pay attention, that is. Anderson, who lived in Britain until she was eleven, has said hers is partly the result of trying to drop her accent in high school. If you pay attention, in the earliest episodes of The X-Files it occasionally slips a bit, especially when she tries to say "garage".
  • Rowan Atkinson suffers from a slight stutter and has issues with the letter "B." He found that the way he compensates for that letter can be quite comedic, which is why his particular pronunciation of "Bob" in the second series of Black Adder elicited so many laughs. It's also why he made a joke about Crufts in Blackadder Goes Forth. He was originally supposed to say "Battersea Dog's Home," but his stutter kicked in badly during taping and the script was hastily rewritten to something easier for him to production could keep moving.
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic has a noticeable lisp that he appears to have a degree of control over — he can be heard to play it up or tone it down, depending on the song and/or character he's playing.
  • Joe Biden is a lifelong stutterer, which is partly responsible for his history of Open Mouth, Insert Foot. He worked to overcome his stutter by reading Irish poetry out loud, which led to his habit of mentioning poets — like William Bulter Yeats and Ralph Waldo Emerson — and quoting verses in his speeches. During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden's interactions with Brayden Harrington, a student with a stutter, became a trending news story as he gave Brayden the confidence to speak on live TV and show the world how he himself is working to overcome his speech impediment.
  • The computer scientist Katie Bouman, who developed the algorithm for black hole imaging, hath quite a notitheable lithp.
  • Nicholas Brendon, Xander from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, used to suffer from stuttering. He's been a major spokesman for the Stuttering Foundation of America.
  • Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse has a rather noticeable lisp, and it affects the way he sings.
  • Jean Chrétien suffered from Bell's Palsy and partial deafness which started in his youth and affected his speech, making it somewhat difficult to understand him in both French and English (leading to jokes that he lacks fluency in Canada's two official languagesnote ). When Prime Minister Kim Campbell attacked Chrétien's disability, not only did he become a 3-term Canadian Prime Minister but he also sent the Progressive-Conservative Party to the Trash-Heap of Canadian Politics.
  • Winston Churchill, a famed orator and snappy comeback artist, suffered from a speech impediment himself in his early years. The reason he comes up with his witty remarks is because he's Crazy-Prepared when it comes to rhetoric.
  • Not one, but two of Hernán Cortés's closest lieutenants, Juan Velázquez de León and Diego de Ordás, were apparently stutterers, and a third one, Gonzalo de Sandoval, had a nasty lisp. One wonders whether Cortés hired them on purpose.
  • Benedict Cumberbatch has a slight lisp, which is more noticeable in his earlier films. He controls it very well, and now it only seems to come out when he's really comfortable with someone or tired. He is also infamously incapable of saying the word "penguin" correctly.
  • Demosthenes,note  one of the most famous orators of the ancient era, had a serious speech impediment in his youth. There are several anecdotes about how he overcame it, such as that he used talk with pebbles in his mouth, recited verses while running and to strengthen his voice, he spoke on the seashore over the roar of the waves.
  • Porky's original VA, actor Joe Dougherty had a stammer in Real Life, which the character inherited. The main reason that Mel Blanc took the role was that Dougherty couldn't control his stutter, which made the recording sessions last hours.
  • Twitch streamer Forsen exhibits this trope while trying to pronounce the word "specimen."
  • Representative Barney Frank has a Sylvester-esque method of speaking.
  • King George VI, as depicted in The King's Speech.
  • Annie Glenn, wife of astronaut-Senator John Glenn, overcame a bad stutter, as shown in a critical scene in The Right Stuff.
  • The religious writer Dawn Eden Goldstein has a stutter.
  • Samuel L. Jackson has stated that the reason he uses so much profanity is because it helps keep him from stuttering.
  • James Earl Jones went into acting precisely to overcome a very strong stutter.
  • Disney animator Milt Kahl developed a stutter later in life, Brad Bird said because of this during the time he studied under him he was better at showing him his drawing techniques than explaining them.
  • Boris Karloff had a stammer and a lisp, which almost discouraged him from acting.
  • Singer Oliver! had a slight lisp.
  • Jonathan Ross (also known as "Wossy") has a rhotacism.
  • Scatman John is probably the best real life example of the trope. He used his stutter to his advantage (becoming a scat singer).
    Everybody stutters one way or the other
    So check out my message to you
    As a matter of fact, don't let nothing hold you back
    If the Scatman can do it, so can you!
  • Word of God states that Daffy Duck's voice was based on Looney Tunes producer, Leon Schlesinger, who spoke with a very pronounced lisp. He supposedly went to his grave without ever realizing this.
  • Country Music singer Mel Tillis is well-known for stuttering while speaking but having no problem while singing. Roger Miller tells a joke on Mel about when they were sharing a room on the road back in the day, and someone broke in while they were sleeping. Mel says, "Ro-Rog-Rog-Rog bur-burg-burg there's-there's bur-burg (switches to singing) Roger, there's a burglar in our room!!!"
  • Pooja Vijay, the Indian stuttering stand-up comedian. Her stammer is a frequent topic of her jokes.
  • Martin Walkyier of Skyclad has a heavy frontal lisp, and isn't shy about using sibilants in his songs which make it extremely noticeable:
    Her pathshion for pathshion, it will devour,
    Cruel are the thornth of thith delicate flower.
    Her lutht for lutht, it will conthume;
    A thiren thong thummonth all men to their doom!
  • There are a number of actors who have partial face paralysis, meaning they speak out of one side of their mouth and have slurred speech as a result, including: Buddy Hackett, Sylvester Stallone, Mark Ruffalo, Milo Ventimiglianote , and Saul Rubinek. Some are able to compensate for it better than others, but most demonstrate trouble enunciating when required to shout.
  • Slavoj Žižek, a Slovenian philosopher and public intellectual, has a strong lisp.

Alternative Title(s): Lisp

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