Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for September 17, 2007

With age-related hearing loss, you lose the upper frequencies first. The consonants, which are made with the tongue against the teeth, are higher pitched, and the vowels, made in the throat, are lower, so you can hear someone talking but you don’t get what they’re saying because pieces of the words are missing. Thus, the “everybody’s mumbling” cliche—which would be much helped by a good session with a certified audiologist and hearing aids. (“Everybody’s mumbling” would sound more or less like “eh ee aw ee uh uh ee.”)