Guinon is disposed to exclude such simple involuntary explosions as "ahem! ahem!" from the tics, though he admits the analogy to them. He says the sound exactly resembles the trifling little clearance of the throat which is repeated a thousand times a day by people suffering from chronic angina. We, however, are inclined to look upon it as an ordinary spasmodic reaction evoked by some laryngeal or pharyngeal irritation, which in spite of the removal of the latter continues to take place, and because of its meaningless repetition is fairly to be classed as a tic. All that we have said of blinking, for instance, is applicable in this connection. Of course the embellishment of one's discourse with more or less audible expirations is of frequent occurrence: the hesitating eh ... eh ... to which children give vent in the recitation of their lessons is not confined to them alone. It can scarcely be maintained that these laryngeal noises are tics, since their production is coincident with the exercise of the faculty of speech; hence they are not unlike "functional cramps." On the other hand, the unexpected bark or gurgle that breaks the silence is a pure tic of phonation.[117] Those who suffer in this way reveal characteristic stigmata in the immediateness of the compelling idea and the exaggerated nature of the subsequent satisfaction. To unravel the intricacies of the origin of these tics is a matter of considerable difficulty, though probably imitation is not without influence in their genesis. Reference will be made later to a tic of this kind attributed by Charcot to imitation. Among the insane similar cries are often the outcome of delusions. At the Congress of Limoges a case was reported by Briand of an old man who imagined himself transformed into a clock and swung his arms with pendulum-like regularity, indicating the hours by uttering raucous sounds at the proper intervals. However curious these sounds were, the fact of their being appropriate is decisive against their classification as tics. Unmistakable tics of speech, however, do occur. Speech is a complex of different muscular acts, and, being so, is liable to be disarranged in various ways, by defect in respiration, phonation, articulation, even in ideation. Organic affections aside, it is inadmissible to describe as tics each and all of the functional disturbances of speech that are not based on any discoverable material lesion of nerve centres. One must in fact distinguish between troubles of speech confined to occasions when the faculty is in operation and those that consist in not merely useless but inopportune utterance. However arduous it may occasionally be to draw this distinction, however common the occurrence of transitional forms, it has the advantage of limiting the scope of the term "tic of language." To the latter category only can the description be applied.