I'll Need You to Enunciate

There’s something wrong with my ears.
“Yew shoulda seed gordin puffinuntin thuther day.”
What?!
This has been going on for a while now, this need to say “huh?” in response to questions. I blame affordable concert prices in my youth, although in all fairness I have to admit that in addition to the intermittent ringing in my ears since Purple Rain, we now have the slurring with which to contend.
Oh, not my slurring: it’s everyone else’s slurring that is messing me up.
But I’ve noticed this slurring of one word into another primarily in men.
Like a recent conversation in which the sentence “yew shoulda seed gordin puffinuntin thuther day” popped up.
Again: What?!
Sure, it looks easy now; but at the time, there had been no hint of anything Gordon-Ramsey related in the conversation.
How it came up, I’ll never know.
And who talks about puffin hunting?
I guess I had never considered puffins a sport bird.
I don’t know. Maybe it’s my ears.
And maybe it’s the close-lipped speech of some people.
All I know is that guy better stop making fun of my bewilderment over “puffinuntin”.
After all, I laugh at his jokes.
I figgeree yoze me.