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14 March 2012
"Vocal Fry" Creeping into US Speech Sorry to be a bit US-centric, but I find this really interesting.→[More:]I have noticed this, but didn't realize it had a name. It's super freaking annoying, though.
I read a spate of similar articles a few months ago and then as now, I'm surprised by the idea that this is something new in U.S. speech. Certainly it's a form of emphasis I've heard (and used) for decades to express ennui, annoyance, exhaustion, impatience, or just that general (often teenaged) sense of "I don't wannnnnnnna."
It's super freaking annoying, though.
Tee hee. That's exactly the kind of spoken phrase I'd expect to use vocal fry for emphasis.
As the article says, it's the opposite in the UK, where the trend is for sentences to end on an 'up', like a question. I read somewhere that this can be dated back to when Australian soap operas (Neighbours, Home & Away) started to become really popular here, and the inflection is a feature of Australian speech.
It really annoys me, particularly as it's very common amongst the younger staff at work, and we work in an area where it's important to be very precise in our use of language. If someone says something that ends with the 'up' but isn't phrased as a question, I don't answer it as if it is a question.
I hate "uptalking" too, Senyar... if someone keeps doing it to me, I'll ask them, "Are you asking me or telling me?" Sometimes making people aware of it will cause them to stop it.
I wish the example used real conversation, though. I get what they're talking about when the sound when is low and long and vibrating, like in the example, but people are using this with real words, not just expressions of what sounds like exasperation?
Hard to say which is more annoying, High rising terminals or Vocal fry. Vocal fry is why I have never been into hardcore or thrash metal like in Ardiril's link. To me they all sound like 11 year old boys practising burping the alphabet. The weirdest thing for me was finding out that some people find Vocal fry sexy.
To me, vocal fry sounds like the anti-uptalk. I hear uptalk as "No offense, right? Because I'm sweet and unassuming?" whereas vocal fry is more "yeah I've seen it all and you can't put anything over on me."
I find uptalking annoying, but vocal fry doesn't bother me.
I watched a show on HGTV and the male half of the couple who was 30-ish did vocal fry the whole time he was talking. His younger girl friend didn't use it at all. I thought it kind of fun to see it "in the wild" since there's been so much talk about it lately.
I read somewhere that this can be dated back to when Australian soap operas (Neighbours, Home & Away) started to become really pop
That started cropping up here in a big way maybe ten years ago, but we didn't have any clear place to trace it. Uptalking was rampant for a while. Thank goodness, only a few people do it now.
Now that I've listened to the clip, it just reminds me of stoner-speak.
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