Practitioner of what--sadism? Your post reminded me, though, of an experience I had with an older relative. We'd been on what was to have been a day-long outing, which was cut short because she complained of being tired and having a headache. Ok, no problem. So we're on the road heading home, still prolly 70 miles away, and I realize I'm having a hard time understanding her speech. And then I realized she was making only gibberish sounds--but all the inflections and pauses seemed appropriate. Turns out she was having a TIA (Transient Ischemic{sp?} Attack)--a sort of temporary, minor stroke. Scared the h--l out of me, for sure. I had noticed she seemed a bit disoriented from time to time, and uncharacteristically stumbled, but until the gibberish started I had put this down to the headache being really bad. She told me later (she's been fine ever since) that to her own ears her speech had sounded normal.