Intro 

This piece is about the joys of non-neurotypical speech, and the terms  ‘splurge’ and ‘nano-blurt’ coined by Tony Gee and Mike Barrett. Tony generously told us about these terms and shared them with the project. 

You’ll hear part of a conversation in which Chloe showed a draft of the splurge and nano-blurt symbol in a workshop. You’ll then hear Tony explaining the terms Splurge and Nano blurt in a bit more detail. Tony has underscored this piece with a musical composition. 

Conversation

Chloe: So this is Tony. Erm I think we were talking about filling in awkward silences. And you had two words for that, like a nano blurt, or a splurge. And then I put silence in between these shapes. I don't know what you thought about that. Or if there's a different way to describe it visually, or - 

Tony: It’s like something that just comes out, it just, it's inside and it just wants to come out and you've got no conscious sort of control over it, it comes out, blurgh, and it means something and you often have to untangle it later. 

Tony: For me, it's something very joyful and you feel - if you're in the right company with people that feel similar, then you don't mask all of these conventions of normal speaking. And you can just splurt out whatever comes out. If people accept that for what it is, and they do the same then you take away some of these masks and layers that build up that you try to appear normal in this neurotypical world. So there's always a joyful thing a splurge. 

Natalie: I’d like to see the splurge and the nano-blurt to have a bit more company there, because they’re all on their own in the river of neurotypicality and we don’t have to be. We’re not in many situations. 

Chloe: Nice. The river of - what was that? 

Natalie: The river of neurotypicality did I say? 

Chloe: So what else would be there? 

Natalie: There’d be - the splurges and nano-blurts, would have other splurges and nano-blurts. 

Chloe: yeah, yeah. 

Tony: Budding! 

Tony: To make it joyful and then I guess - have you ever done? - sorry this is science nerdy thing now, but have you ever put sodium in water? ever done that at school? And then you get this sort of boom of bright light and things like that. You could maybe say you’re throwing in some sodium in the water and you get these beautiful colours coming out like fireworks sort of coming out in this sort of rather boring river of neurotypicality.

Tony: The nano blurt is just one of these small buds that comes out like poof! A minor splurge. 

(laugher). 

Tony: 

“Well they were sort of co-created by, one of my friends and myself, Mike Barret - who’s an artist. So we’ve developed our own language that caters for our neurodivergency. So splurge: I mean this is like a - so sometimes you get onto - a thought suddenly appears - or something, a thought or experience or something - suddenly comes from nowhere - and you just start talking about it and you can’t stop - you’ve got to get it out before you forget about it. It’s like dreams, as well, if you have a dream you’ve got to quickly sort of recount the dream before it disappears. And then once you've got to the end of it. Right, I've got all that out. Now I've got to try and understand all of that stuff that came out. It's like a shortcut between your consciousness and your subconscious. That's the way I see it anyway, or the way we see it me and Mike and others probably too. And so I guess the thing is not to get in the way of it and let your subconscious have it’s say. Be friends with your subconscious, your non-conscious self, and it will treat you with its wisdom or whatever it wants to say. And you've got to be aware of it and make room for it so that when it comes you, you sort of embrace it. So that's what we call a splurge (laughter).

Nano blurts is like a minor splurge. And the best example I've had of that is when we've played a game called Tiny thing, and each person has to think of a tiny thing. And we go round, and people try and guess what it is. And it was my turn to guess what this thing was. And I thought - consciously thought of two things that could be and they were wrong. 

And then they said, “Well, you’ve got three goes”,

Tony: “I don't have a clue. I don't know”. And then suddenly, “Pollen” came out! I didn't think about it - pollen!.

And they looked at me and said, “That's right. You're right. That's what the tiny thing I was thinking of is”. 

And I hadn't rationalised that at all - the other two, the first two, I had and I didn't I had anything more. And suddenly this nano blurt came up - pollen!  and that was the answer! 

And somehow, I knew where it was going, but I wasn't aware of it and then it popped up. And I totally astonished myself! I was like - it was like, getting a hug from your subconscious.

Outro:

The music was composed by Tony Gee. The conversation included the voices of Tony Gee, Natalie Joelle, Chloe Meinick and Oliver Biggs. And huge thanks to Mike Barret for giving us permission to share the terms here.