I know several people with split tongues. For the most part, once the healing is done and they practice a bit, they reduce their impediments to almost nothing. Erik can move the halves of his tongue independently and cross them and do tricks and stuff.
I used to have an 8 gauge piece of steel in my mouth. I spoke without impediment until the weight from the jewelry caused the hole to gradually stretch a bit, making the jewelry more jiggly. Still, the impediment was only detectable to myself, and only when I tried to trill my R's.
The people you meet who let their tongue mods interfere with their speech are, for the most part, the uninformed. After the initial swelling goes down following a piercing, the jewelry is supposed to be switched out for shorter jewelry that fits the mouth better. Most people don't do this, either because they were pierced by bad piercers who didn't give proper aftercare instructions, or because they want to save money (which they won't in the long run because they're more likely to break a tooth on a longer barbell), or because they didn't pay attention to the aftercare instructions and don't listen to their bodies and are angry at the world and blah blah blah.
The modded people with whom I have associated for the past 3 or 4 years are better informed and more responsible. We understand the risks and how to minimize them.
I had to abandon one of my cool ear project pieces. I had one piece of jewelry as an orbital in my lower earlobe. I've had it for several years. It started getting grumpy and the ring was migrating through the lobe a bit, so I put two separate pieces of jewelry in it. It's happier now. It bums me out because it looked pretty sweet, but faced with the possibility of having a scar on my ear, I opted not to force my body to continue to put up with what it decided it did not want to accept. That's the difference between me and my friends, and the people with modification-induced speech impediments.
I rambled quite a bit, didn't I?
Just don't get me started on the superiority of needle piercings to piercing gun piercings.
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I am a delicate fucking flower.
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