The uvula is the small clapper that is suspended from the center of the soft palate. First, I thought it was the Adam's apple, then I thought it was the tonsils. Later, I thought it was damaged, and that the damage was what caused my stuttering. Cutting the tissue that connects the lower part of the tongue enables a Mynah bird to speak easier. This surgery was also done on humans to 'loosen' the gift of speech. When I began stuttering, there was talk of cutting this; you must remember that this was 1955; speech therapy was swathed in a veil of experimentalism, had the taint of the disreputable. I was afraid that they would snip everything off: I somehow thought that all my powers of speech lay not on my tongue but on that small, conical, fleshy clapper,seemingly useless, but resonant in the bell of my mouth.