Sorry, Michael, I mean your speakup's weirdness. I did not retain your earlier messages, but a thought occurred to me: I saw something like that on my system months ago which turned out to be caused by failing to terminate the espeakup connector after switching speakup to using an external synthesizer. It was essential to terminate both the espeakup connector and the speechd-up connector when attempting to use an external synthesizer with speakup. The talkwith script does that for you, but if you are switching synths manually, it is easy to neglect terminating those daemons. I think that's why they're called daemons, actually. If the above doesn't apply to your situation, maybe it will help someone else. I am using speakup without any of the peculiarities you described, cutting and pasting like mad between consoles, etc., without the slightest sign of any abnormality here. Chuck -- The Moon is Waxing Crescent (15% of Full) My web site: www.hallenbeck.ftml.net For an accessible open source twitter service, see www.identi.ca -------- The strong give up and move away, while the weak give up and stay.