Accidental Accent

 

I was thinking this morning.... about how a car accident left a Jamaican woman left-handed and with British accent. 'How possible is that?' When I first read the report of how 33-year-old Deana-Rae Clayton, an all-Jamaican woman with a rich island accent was involved in a horrible car crash that claimed the life of a friend and left two others seriously injured, I was interested to know more. It was reported that when Clayton first awoke from a coma two days after the accident, she found herself speaking with an American accent, which gradually changed to a British accent months later. Doctors described the phenomenon as foreign accent syndrome – a speech disorder that has caused a sudden change to her native tongue.

Clayton had explained, 'the swelling that the brain damage caused is between my language and motor skills, so my accent has changed and I am now left-handed instead of right-handed. I am unable to speak the Jamaican accent now,' she told The Sunday Gleaner, adding that her life will never be the same again. Wow!!! The accident first turned the Jamaican into an American and then British. Are you thinking what I am thinking? May Nigerians not know the junction in the brain between the language and motor skills o, because they will self-induce the swelling so as to suffer from 'foreign accent syndrome.' You know how obsessed many Nigerians are with having the Yankee accent.

On the other hand, if a simple swelling can turn a right-handed person to become left-handed, won't it be possible for doctors to induce swelling in the brain that will change all the corrupt Nigerian politicians into saints? The kidnappers and killers into caregivers? Abeg which part of the brain can we press, so that Nigerians entrusted with leadership will never remember how to loot the treasury. I am sure doctors will call it 'Corruption Correction Syndrome.'

Deana-Rae Clayton had concluded that apart from her now being left-handed and having a British accent, the accident has affected her so much that her life will never be the same again. The good news is we need not be in an accident to become new. God has made provision to transform us to new creatures. 2nd Corinthians 5:17 says 'Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.' Do the right thing and have the right accent of life before a traumatic event forcefully make you change your dexterity and accent.

Happy Sunday.

......Just the thoughts of a certain Wey Mey.