'Vocal Fry' Creeping Into US Speech 331
sciencehabit writes "A curious vocal pattern has crept into the speech of young adult women who speak American English: low, creaky vibrations, also called vocal fry. Pop singers, such as Britney Spears, slip vocal fry into their music as a way to reach low notes and add style. Now, a new study of young women in New York state shows that the same guttural vibration — once considered a speech disorder — has become a language fad."
Nothing new (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Interesting)
The article isn't about old people being grumpy about the change, or about change in general. The article is about the change itself.
"Language changes" isn't new, but "This language is changing in this way" is.
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My only complaint is that "vocal fry" is a stupid name for it. It is very obviously a croak, and people have been doing it for generations.
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Insightful)
And there will always be touchy, defensive people of all ages who perceive criticism behind every simple observation.
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Interesting)
I once worked with an Arab guy who grew up in the USA who went back to Bahrain for a year during high school. He went to an exclusive public school, and when his British educated teacher had him stand to read Shakespeare, after the teacher heard a few lines the teacher ordered him to sit down, saying, "your accent is offensive to my ears."
The irony is that while North American and British English have diverged over the centuries, the accent in North America has changed far less, and thus remains closer to how Elizabethan English would have been spoken. In the eighteenth century, visitors to the American colonies remarked on how "correctly" English was spoken by all classes, even slaves. In the early 19th centuries the shifts in pronunciation which characterize "correct" ("Oxford" or "received") pronunciation were decried by language purists in England.
I once read a complaint by an English reviewer of George C. Scott's performance as Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol". The reviewer was put off by Scott's American accent. However if we take the story to occur around 1840, and Scrooge to be about 60 and not a native Londoner, the difference between Scrooge's accent and that of younger characters like Bob Cratchit would have been rather accurate.
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Interesting)
This. More specifically, I have heard that the "Southern Bell" accent is the closest accent to the original, proper 18th century English, and that "ain't" was a desirable word by the upper class.
For those not familiar, the Southern Bell accent is the kind of accent you might here from upper class white folk in the Deep South. It's almost gone, now, but maybe still exists sparsely. Most commonly, you hear it in movies set in the old South.
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Interesting)
I recall reading a piece by Michael Montgomery (the linguistics professor, not the football player) explaining that this has never actually been true.
I believe it was in a book called "Language Myths", an interesting read if you're into that sort of thing.
Disclaimer: IANALA (I am not a linguistic anthropologist)
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My husband is from Brooklyn, you insensitive clod!
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the only differences in terms of spoken English are related to the slang they use.
Not true.
First, all English speakers, (by this I assume you mean British English) do not speak the same or have the same accents, the accents are markedly different from different areas.
The most noticeable thing to a Midwestern American is the way the swallow the tail end of words, in extreme cases to the point where it becomes an exercise just to understand them. (Wo = what, or "Shu Up and le me go" from the Ting Tings).
Its far more than just the slang. And its quite regional in nature.
Re:More worrying (Score:4, Funny)
the inability to differentiate between how a word is spoken and how it is spelt ...
You might be in the same club considering you harped on about that and missed:
the kind of accent you might here from upper class
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I once worked with an Arab guy who grew up in the USA who went back to Bahrain for a year during high school. He went to an exclusive public school, and when his British educated teacher had him stand to read Shakespeare, after the teacher heard a few lines the teacher ordered him to sit down, saying, "your accent is offensive to my ears."
Some American accents really do irritate some British people.
It's one particular American accent. The closest I can find on Youtube is this girl [youtube.com]. The annoying bit is that the last word of every phrase is drawn out. "Hey everybody----, it's Winifred------, [can't understand] make this video for her-----, [...] I thought it was like perfect----, 'cause, she was like----, ...".
That teacher sounds awful though. I would never ask someone to stop talking because of their accent (unless I can't understand). Tha
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<quote> Having a stupid accent is a conscious decision. </quote> No, no it really isn't. I notice that if I spend more than one week with a particular group of people on and off, I start using their speech patterns, including pronunciation, tonality, etc. Every now and again, I cringe over something that I've unconsciously mimicked. Getting rid of a stupid accent is the conscious decision, and not an easy one. There's a reason people suggest full immersion language learning.
This. I have a couple of relatives that grew up in the exact same area with the exact same accents, but 10-20 years later their accents now reflect where they moved to (Kansas, Georgia, South Carolina). Though their accents aren't as heavy as the average joe from the area, it still clearly isn't what it used to be.
At the same time, I moved someone only a few hours or so away from where I grew up. My coworkers occasionally make fun of my accent, while I didn't notice a difference. I finally visited home a
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The irony is that while North American and British English have diverged over the centuries, the accent in North America has changed far less, and thus remains closer to how Elizabethan English would have been spoken.
I've heard both sides of this argument. And since there's no way of comparing today's speech to that spoken in Elizabethan England, that may never be settled.
But what we can do is to compare today's British and American speech patterns to those from the dawn of the sound recording age. Now, I can't speak for the British, but American accents have changed drastically. So unless something pulled our (American) accents back towards those of 17th century Britain, it doesn't seem likely.
To confuse the issue fu
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't like speculating on the transition between Middle English and modern English. That happened in an era before printing or widespread literacy, and surviving documents from the 15th C are extremely rare. The split between British and American pronunciation started in the mid 1700s and went on through the mid 1800s. We have tons of evidence from the writings of contemporary observers about when and how the changes took place. I actually think that this evidence is *stronger* than the evidence from the early days of recording, since you had to speak in an unnatural cadence and loudness to be heard clearly, and it is highly likely that the pronunciation used was affected and exaggerated. I doubt Teddy Roosevelt talked to his family the way he sounds on recordings. Barack Obama sounds quite different giving a speech than giving an interview, so if you used his recorded speeches as evidence of how Americans normally talk you'd be led astray.
So what were the complaints of the language purists of the early 1800s? Young Lord Byron was castigated by older critics for making rhymes that are now quite valid in modern RP but not in American English. Educated Britons complained of the loss of syllables in "necessary" and "secretary" ("neces-sree" and "secre-tree"), characterizing it as sloppy, lower-class speech. This process of the sloppy becoming the gold standard is still going on today. I suspect that in a hundred years' time Estuary English will supplant the Oxford/BBC/Received Pronunciation as the "correct" dialect.
As for Shakespeare, one can use evidence like rhyme choices, but English poets of yore were rather loose with their interpretation of rhyme. I think it's fairly safe to say that nobody is walking around speaking *exactly* the dialect of 17th C. London. Both Standard American English and RP share a common root in 18th C. English, but RP is more different from the common ancestor dialect than SAE. Nonetheless it's a fair guess that both dialects would sound strange in Elizabethan ears.
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This is typical of all emigrant populations. They tend to "freeze" their language in the form it had at the time of the main emigration. Thus Canadian French is very close to Seventeenth Century European French.
Personal note: My family is of Finnish descent. All 4 grandparents were immigrants to the US. My parents are both fluent in the language of the "Old Country." I can only say a few basic phrases, but my kid sister made the effort to pick up a fair amount from our parents.
When she made a trip to Finlan
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Informative)
[Citation needed]
OK, here (O'Conner and Kellerman ) you go.
----
Works Cited
O'Conner, Patricia T., and Stewart Kellerman. Origins Of The Specious, Myths And Misconceptions Of The English Language. Random House Inc, 2009.
Re:Nothing new (Score:4, Insightful)
Closer British ties would actually imply that Canadian English would have evolved with British English. American English without those ties would have had a more pronounced island effect.
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Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup. This is why it seems like a waste of time to obsess over "proper" English. Words are like clothes, you mix and match and there isn't any right answer.
As for the article, I have easily noticed this in well over 34 women at my college, but only in a certain subset of people. Namely, those who want to sound like pop singers. It's the same class of people who tan. So I have my doubts about it creeping into American English in general.
Also, who scanned the article and thought, "Futurama is influencing American speech!?"
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Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Nothing new (Score:4, Insightful)
If anything, among the privileged of the world, the lack of feminism in male attire was the exception for awhile, rather than the rule. Womens' high fashion was based around clothing that was designed for form instead of function, and definitely fails at allowing women to work while wearing it. Privileged mens' fashion followed a similar pattern with hosiery, ornamentation, even high heels, until within the last couple-hundred years, when it switched to what we attribute as business attire. Womens' clothing everyday clothing evolved into ornamentation on semi-practical clothing, and now some mens' fashion is following suit.
It's actually been this way for some time though. Look at the disco attire of the seventies- that certainly was not a masculine way to dress.
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In support of your comment... Clearly there are many people are confused about what a 'Real Man' is. It is actually really simple.
Real Men have penises.
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Interesting)
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But your company doesn't send out correspondence to clients saying "should of", does it?
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Insightful)
"Yup. This is why it seems like a waste of time to obsess over "proper" English. Words are like clothes, you mix and match and there isn't any right answer."
I don't obsess over it, but exceptionally sloppy speech is not a plus during job interviews. The purpose of speech is to communicate, and if you can only speak "trailer" or "ghetto" then I'll place you (or not) appropriately.
It's fine to be able to SWITCH between speaking styles to suit your audience. That's different than having an accent that's a self-inflicted speech impediment.
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Words are like clothes, you mix and match and there isn't any right answer.
Yup, but, just as with clothes, there are certainly WRONG answers
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It come to reason women will take more of the men's speaking pattern as they become more common in public speaking.
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Language changes over time. It always has, it always will. Of course the old people will always be grumpy how current generation of kids can't behave or talk correctly. They always have, they always will.
I agree, a language is whatever it's users are doing, so it can't help but change over time... don't know if I'd call it "evolving" as some do. To me if a language is evolving it would become better at conveying better specific meaning with fewer, simpler phonemes. I think we tend to do the opposite, and like, totally crap up the information with, like, things that are SOooo useless. Old people are grumpy about the fact that someone else is young and they are not.
Someone else is getting laid, and they are
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Actually, you know, I was, like, reading your note when, um, I realized, you know, that you confused vocal patterns with, like, language, you know what I mean.
Just what we need (Score:3, Funny)
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Out of all the "celebrities" that one could imitate, why pick one that can barely talk, much less sing? Should, through some cosmic sense of humor, I ever interview anyone like this, the interview would effectively be over within seconds.Our teams do not need to add affected speech to raise yet more barriers to communications.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
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It's still racist to imply that people who use those ticks are less educated than those that don't. Linguistic profiling is one of the last forms of racism that's generally accepted by main stream society and I'm not surprised that some idiot decided to mod me down for pointing it out.
You keep saying it's racist, speech has nothing to do with race! It's an absurd argument you're making that an individuals speech is ethnically based. Guess that means Obama can't ever speak English properly because he's black? How does that work for Eminem? LOL is he a race-bater for rapping?
If one talks like an idiot then don't be surprised if people perceive them as an idiot. Why is this so hard to grasp? There is nothing racist about that you bigot.
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Re:Just what we need (Score:4, Funny)
Are you by any chance from descended from Cretans?
No, probably Goedel. :)
vocal Fry? (Score:3, Insightful)
vocal fry
I came in expecting an article about the Fry's "shut up and take my money" meme. Boy was I disappointed.
Re:vocal Fry? (Score:5, Funny)
"Study of 34 female speakers" (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely on a college campus, you can find more than 34 females to do a study on? I would imagine they spent 10-20 times the amount of time writing about their "findings" than they did surveying for data. Is this normal? A study like this wouldn't be terribly time consuming; I would hope for a sample of at least 100 samples, preferably from more than one region (cities/metro areas like London have at least 7 distinct dialects).
It's interesting (I can think of at least two people I know who do this vocal fry) but such a small sample size seems like a poor subject to waste time writing a paper on without doing another hour's worth of research.
Re:"Study of 34 female speakers" (Score:5, Informative)
As for the backgrounds of the students they do not provide a geographical range in the article. It is not in the abstract of the paper either. Without reading the paper it is not clear what kind of backgrounds the students came from. If they all came from the same college then that is a bigger issue than the sample size and is clearly not a "random sample."
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There is a highly unwarranted assumption here that the proportion sought is constant across the whole US population.
So this argument is really saying: if the trend occurs in the exact same proportion everywhere among all females in the US, th
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Yes it is normal, 34 people are far more then enough to get statistically significant results that are almost identically significant to 100.
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As a fellow /.er has posted above, this statement works if the error is purely statistical, that is to say no significant contribution of systematic bias.
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Well, there are rules about this sort of thing...
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You win the prize for "low content post of the day" and it's not even lunch time yet.
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Re:"Study of 34 female speakers" (Score:5, Funny)
Surely on a college campus, you can find more than 34 females to do a study on?
Come on guys, no one took the bait on this one?
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Small studies typically aim to have about 20 samples. Below 20 it gets much less likely that you'll have a significant finding. Going higher requires more work, which means more funding. Who is going to sink big money into research on vocal patterns? If this is something you are interested in, you have to squeeze it into a pretty tight budget.
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Surely on a college campus, you can find more than 34 females to do a study on?
Who's first language isn't Mandarin? I doubt it.
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coming up next (Score:5, Funny)
Next we'll be hearing autotune in everyday speech.
Re:coming up next (Score:5, Interesting)
Next we'll be hearing autotune in everyday speech.
Er, I'm not sure that I'd dismiss that possibility *entirely* out of hand. (*) While I'm not sure how Autotune (**) would translate to speech- since it's used for *singing*- the same could be said for this supposed "vocal fry", which started out as a singing technique, and I'm not sure how *that* got transferred to speech. Autotune is pretty damn common, so really, if vocal fry can make the jump, we shouldn't dismiss that Autotune might have *some* effect on speech, even if it's hindered by the fact that most people don't have a box of digital electronics in their voicebox. :-)
;-)
:-)
Anyway, as for this "vocal fry's" *singing* origins- having checked out what they mean via YouTube- IMHO it sounds less like "a way to reach low notes" and more like what has *always* happened when people *can't* reach those low notes properly, i.e. "it's not shitty singing, it's a vocal technique".... Yeah, right!
Not sure if I have any opinion about vocal fry as a speech pattern, as I haven't heard enough of it to figure out if it's an annoying affectation, just part of the natural mutation of language... or both.
(*) Then again, what do I know. While I don't- or didn't- hate Autotune misuse (**) per se, as an interesting technique in itself (I've heard some quite good examples), my problem is its overuse *everywhere*. I got bored of it ages ago, and predicted the fad would have died at least a year ago now. Since this clearly hasn't happened, I've also considered the possibility that it may indicate a permanent change in music tastes- and, as if sods' law wanted to prove how out of touch I am- it will probably turn out to be a fad that goes massively out of fashion at some point after all. Or not- as I said, what do I know, I'm way too old for chart music anyway.
(**) As opposed to the original intended purpose of Autotune, which was to simply correct imperfections in singing. Ironically when people talk about "Autotune" now, it's usually to mean the deliberate misuse/overuse of it for effect- and not simple correction- because the latter is so prevalent (and the former should not stand out if done correctly).
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Phonemic (Score:3)
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Maybe it is from (Score:5, Funny)
Brushing their teeth with a bottle of Jack?
Re:Maybe it is from (Score:4, Insightful)
This too shall pass. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Oh, wait...
Re:This too shall pass. (Score:4, Informative)
>You don't really hear that much anymore.
You obviously do not live in a predominately college town. Here in Blacksburg we have a permanent population of around 15,000 and a student population of 35,000. For nine months out of the year, I marvel at how Frank Zappa has pulled off the longest troll in the history of music -- spreading that god-awful dialect all the way out East so that even 30 years after the song, I'm surrounded by what started as an attempt of a daughter to cozy up to her dad by making fun of stupid people from Encino.
If the girls talk like airheads, then the guys here talk like wanna-be thugs. Even at an engineering school, I am subjected daily to "Yeah, but uh, y'know I was like... whaaaaaaat?" But that's a whole other topic. First, let's get rid of the word "like". I am convinced that this generation is so disaffected and removed from everything that nothing is real to them anymore. They don't want a cup of coffee; they ask "can I just get like, a cup of coffee?" They didn't go see the movie 3 times, they saw it "like, 3 times". Nothing is real or concrete to them.
Re:This too shall pass. (Score:5, Informative)
If the girls talk like airheads, then the guys here talk like wanna-be thugs. Even at an engineering school, I am subjected daily to "Yeah, but uh, y'know I was like... whaaaaaaat?" But that's a whole other topic. First, let's get rid of the word "like". I am convinced that this generation is so disaffected and removed from everything that nothing is real to them anymore. They don't want a cup of coffee; they ask "can I just get like, a cup of coffee?" They didn't go see the movie 3 times, they saw it "like, 3 times". Nothing is real or concrete to them.
This is not what you think it does. In this context 'like' is being used as a 'filler' [wikipedia.org]. The 'filler like' itself has no meaning, but in a place holder for a pause. Similar to other 'words' such as 'uh' or 'hmm' or 'er'. It does not mean necessarily 'nearly' or 'almost' - although it could mean that too, it depends on context.
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That's not new at all -- the Phoenix area has been doing that for at least 20 years, and probably more.
its spread farther, too, its pretty common in Nevada and Colorado, too. But its pretty much ubiquitous in AZ, and has been since the 80s.
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Interstate Highway 10 has 5 syllables. The 10 has two. Guess which is going to win?
Dropping 'the' to get down to just '10' is hard because there are typically both mileage and time uses of numbers in such conversations.
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So what do you think "the 10" should be called (I live in CA)? Do you say "Interstate Highway 10" in normal speech (or just "Highway 10", which also sounds unnaturally formal to me, but is not unreasonable)? Or, do you say "the 10 limited access highway"?
I'm originally from Western New York (Buffalo, went to university in Rochester). We have highways there equivalent to CA's freeways (though much smaller), but no one calls them freeways, they call them highways. But then, there are regular surface roads tha
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What in the world? (Score:3)
Britney Spears got mentioned on /. because of her voice?
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Britney Spears got mentioned on /. because of her voice?
Only because of her voice coaching. They make it sound almost like she came up with the technique, next they will have us believe this performing monkey actually programmes the synths and writes her own music.
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Her voice has a lot to do with her throat. How do you imagine she developed this skill? How do you want to imagine she developed this skill?
Marge Simpson did it first (Score:5, Funny)
Marge Simpson did it first
Breaking news... (Score:2)
Britney or Antares? (Score:2)
Are we absolutely certain that this effect is not an artifact of Auto-tune?
I have heard kids on the street doing a remarkable mimic of T-Pain.
Isn't this a normal US-vocal thing? "registeRRRs" (Score:5, Insightful)
When i hear the example voice ( http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/vocalfryshort.mp3 [sciencemag.org] ) speak -prior to their example- i hear the same sound in her normal speech. Note the R / H usage:
registeRRRRRs.
piCHHHHHes.
tHis.
I know some would call this just pronouncing part of a word, but i clearly hear the same exact thing, and also, if i (as an euopean) try to pronounce these words with those sounds, i only succeed when i "vocal fry" as heared in the example.
I find these URRRRRR sounds in the middle of words make people sound not so smart (ppl that rather be lazy / hippies) just like how the french sound as if they can't find their words with their constant EUGHHHHHH groan in spoken language.
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I don't know, but I think the woman in the clip is referring to the sort of clicking, two-stroke engine like sound that she makes at the end. I don't hear any of that when she speaks normally. Her R:s sound nice and clean.
I occasionally use that sound and I've always assumed that it signals "I'm too lazy/tired/drunk/confused to think properly about what you just said", so you associating it with laziness makes sense, although it could also mean that the person you're speaking with thinks that you're confusi
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Yeah, firefox needs to have a wider window between versions for plugins to catch up. To explain, the problem you are having is that some of your plugins (e.g. adobe pdf plugin) are not keeping up compatibility with the latest version of firefox, and are often lagging the release by 3-4 months, by which time people on auto-upgrade may have moved to yet the next version! This has put large numbers of people on semi-functional software, and is driving lots of people to chrome. You might almost believe tha
Mongolian Britney Spears (Score:3, Interesting)
Now if only they learn to sing like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwANedEkqaY
Fashion influences young people! news! (Score:2)
News at 11! Young people alter their behaviour to follow the fashions led by pop stars! Shocking news....
Need a quirky speech style? (Score:4, Funny)
Why not Zoidberg?
Does that make me a vocal hipster? (Score:2)
I've been speaking in the lowest register I can for years. It started after a bad day in the school choir followed by laryngitis, and I found that speaking with a 'fry' allowed me to speak when every other range was still sore and painful. It also got rid of my horrid Appalachia accent.
Oh well, can't be seen to imitate pop stars, guess I have to speak in my normal range for a while til this fad passes. That should surprise/scare a few people.
How low can you go? (Score:2)
What's really cool is to go so low you can almost count the individual pops!
This is new? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm 53, I remember girls that sounded like this all my life. And I can jokingly say "For an example of vocal fry head on down to the casino and find an old lady by a slot machine". So, my personal life experience tells me there's nothing new here.
Concerning the comments about people not using proper English: What is important is that words are used properly, that their meanings preserved so that communication can be meaningful. Confucius covered this long ago, [thinkexist.com]
And, yeah, I was hoping for Futurama Fry too :)
what? (Score:2)
They're gearing up for a new career (Score:2)
They can always become Airline Pilots with that kind of voice...
"Ladies and Gentlemen, uh-uh-uh-h-h-h-h-h-h.
we're waiting for final clearance, uh-uh-uh-h-h-h-h-h,
before we taxi to the runway, uh-uh-uh-h-h-h-h-h....."
"Throat creak" (Score:5, Interesting)
Smoking.... (Score:2)
I wonder if this has anything to do with smoking rather than simple speak patterns. According to Wikipedia, approximately 30% of college students smoke. Most smokers I know have "fry" speech patterns. At the back of my mind I seem to remember that smoking was increasing among women, but I could be wrong as I can't find any recent studies with a quick Google search.
Erica Cerra (Score:2)
Erica Cerra (Deputy Jo Lupo) has been doing this more and more on Eureka and calls it "acting". I find it extremely aggravating. She sounds like she had throat surgery that went terribly wrong. I wonder how many google searches there have been for "erica cerra throat cancer"...
Lots of new sounds creeping in - Van-key-oo-ver (Score:2)
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I doubt they got a government grant for that one. Looks like your tax dollars are headed elsewhere.
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Almost certainly not. This kind of thing is almost universally funded privately by rich people who have eccentric interests.
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