Stammering has never been a particularly dignified affliction, tied in as it is with foppish dilettantes who wander around Wodehouse novels like accidents waiting to happen. We stammerers are portrayed as crooks, perverts, chinless wonders, maladjusted members of the underclass, or simply figures of fun. It is an affliction that rarely inspires anything but pity, or sarcasm. No one likes to stammer. It has no kudos.
For years I have been what is medically known as a covert stammerer. Having stammered since the age of five, I quickly learned to avoid the various letters and words that I began to find difficult to pronounce. If asked to identify the one thing that has caused me the most irritation in my life, I would have to point, not to a debilitating illness or handicap, but to the consonant that follows ABC.
D, how I hate you.
Of course Bs, Gs and Ss have at times wreaked havoc too, but it is Ds that have kept me awake at night, made me weak from anxiety and affected the way in which I see and talk to the world. Approximately 500,000 adults stammer in the UK and it affects four times as many men as women. Genetics are often responsible and there is a 20% greater chance that you will stammer if a close relative has a speech problem, but emotional and physical stress on a child play a part. Five per cent of children under five will go through a phase of stammering as they get used to talking.
Children are remarkably resourceful when it comes to identifying someone's weak points, but with a stammer the ammunition is handed to them on a plate. Few things are more worrying when you are young than standing in the middle of a playing field with 20 other boys, waiting to call out their names and knowing that when your turn comes, your stammer is only going to be exacerbated by the anxiety of getting it right. I also remember standing in the dinner queue, knowing that I was going to have immense difficulty asking for whatever was on the menu that day, the pressure increasing second by second as my school friends swiftly barked their requests before turning away. Between the ages of eight and 16, it was utter hell.
Some women say they find a stammer attractive, but no teenage girl ever finds a stammer attractive, at least not the ones I knew at 13. Consequently, in my early teens, I started to become scared of speaking. Pulling myself away from my classmates, I would while away the hours at school carrying on entire conversations in my head. I became monosyllabic, as grunting was easier than trying to say something that involved words, sentences, punctuation, opinion, thought, feeling. I gravitated towards words I could pronounce.
As I matured, I began to take my stammer for granted and it became almost an integral part of my makeup. During my late teenage years, when a different youth cult seemed to invade my life every six months or so, my stammer became a badge of notoriety, a symbol - like an earring or a black leather jacket - of a certain type of "otherness".
But then I really did grow up and the stammer (or at least its importance) faded from my life like so many Buzzcocks records. It was never completely debilitating, but seeing that my main hindrance was always the dreaded D, obviously one of the worst things for me had been announcing myself on the telephone. It had almost made me reluctant to introduce myself, which, as a journalist, caused all too palpable problems.
Having stammered quite badly for the best part of 30 years, in my early 30s I went to see a speech therapist. Strangely, stupidly, perhaps - it was only being asked to write an article about stammering that spurred me to do this; I suppose that previously I had accepted my stammer as part of my life.
I went so see a consultant in west London, a charming woman in her mid-30s with immaculate diction. "There is no absolute answer to stammering and even some of the best teachers repeat the mantra 'Once a stammerer, always a stammerer', but the best way to attack it is through practice - lots and lots of practice," she said.
As with tennis tuition, speech therapy tends to make you worse before you start getting better, as you unlearn all your bad habits. However, my condition was, technically speaking, "mild" (I only faltered on a few consonants) and the tutor seemed to think I would improve relatively easily. The first thing I learned was to run up to words using something called Easy Onset, which is basically breathing in and partially breathing out before you attempt a difficult word or letter.
The second thing I learned was that all my problems revolved around sounds that were caused by blocking this air flow with the tongue (try saying D, G, or B), so consequently I learned to tap my tongue on the roof of my mouth instead of allowing it to linger.
The tuition proved to be a fascinating process and, with practice, I slowly began to feel myself getting better. Last week I had to give a leaving speech for a member of staff, a good lieutenant who is moving on to another magazine. Like most leaving speeches, it was more of a roast than anything else, and the motif centred on all the "bollockings" he had had from various members of staff since his arrival at GQ. I had to say "bollocking" at least a dozen times, and I only faltered once. Ten years ago I would never have attempted a speech using a word beginning with such a hard consonant.
· Dylan Jones is the editor of GQ and the author of Mr Jones' Rules, published by Hodder & Stoughton, priced £14.99.
