I was listening to ABBA again last night (yes, I know, but it's weaning me off Millican and Nesbitt, so don't complain), and I was struck by something I'd never noticed before: Agnetha and Frida's inability to get their mouths around voiced alveolar fricatives (sounds painful, I know, but it's just elocution-lessons talk for when an "s" sounds like a "z", like the second one in "sounds").

According to ABBA, it was a rich mance world with tierce in their ice.

I once worked with a female vocalist whose CV as a backing singer was achingly impressive. And to match the pipes she happened to be a looker of Beyoncesque proportions. But she couldn't get a record deal. I assumed her case was just another of life's many A&R unfathomables. . . until she came bouncing into the studio and opened her mouth.

"Hi! What thtyle you want me to thing — thoul, gothpel-type thtuff or thomething elthe?"

Oh. Bugger. We soldiered on, but despite the engineer's best efforts her vocal still sounded like Whitney Houston doing a Freddie "Parrot Face" Davies impression. In a backing group she was the business, but tragically she just wasn't viable as a solo artist.

This set me thinking about whether any other speech idiosyncrasies or full-blown impediments have hindered or even helped any careers. (Kate Bush doesn't count, because although she has evident "r" twouble in interviews, it's not noticeable when she sings.)

In fact, I can only come up with one singer with, er, phonetic orthodoxy issues who ever made it: shlkhstand up and be counted, Mishlkhs Toyah Willcoxshlkhs, whose alveolar fricatives sounded like Parisian plumbing at 3 a.m.

But can you think of anyone elshlkhse?