Posted on 06/09/2015 11:41:48 PM PDT by upchuck
...Building to a crescendo is a small thing that is now screaming at me, particularly when I tune into NPR and other lefty venues. Something doesn’t exist until you name it, so I am offering the term beta-lilt, which is the verbal affectation of ending a sentence a tone higher than the body of the statement. This normally is used to imply a question like an invisible question mark, which is perfectly fine in the sparse use of a normal conversation. However, it has somehow become the basis for all conversation among certain people. As a guess, I would say it is generally found in the Millennials with an emphasis on the women and beta males within that group.
Now that I have brought it to your attention, I believe you will quickly recall its use and recall that it goes with a subservient verbal posture that implies a serf speaking to his overbearing master. A further guess would be that it developed within our ‘institutions of higher learning’ [/snark] where students are browbeaten into sitting at the feet of their all wise professors of gender studies and are always testing their place in the pecking order like a puppy with a few too many whacks with a rolled up newspaper.
Implicit in this affectation is the premise that “I am making a statement and I don’t know whether you will agree with it, so I am offering it as a question, so when you signal any disagreement (probably non-verbally), I am less likely to have to prostrate myself in front of you.”
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
The latest thing is starting sentences with the word So.
The old reliable, What, doesn't seem to be dying.
"So, what I'm saying is that this is driving me crazy." vs "This is driving me crazy."
eh?
[The latest thing is starting sentences with the word So.]
This has become so common on FOX News I believe interviewees are being coached to begin their replies with: “So. . .”
WELL, it’s effete.
I know exactly the affectation you’re describing, and it is absolutely cringeworthy when it comes from the mouths of American men, who, not all that long ago, mostly spoke like....men.
Men in this country used to speak with a cadence and rhythm that communicated certainty and firmness. When American men spoke, they ended their sentences with definition - not ambiguity or doubt - unless that’s what they intended to convey.
Now, this sing-songy, Valley Girl lilt, seems to be built-in to this millenial/metrosexual/pansyboy dialect that I hear everywhere. I hear guys talking like this, and wonder if they ever hear themselves and compare their girly cooing to how real men speak.
I have a feeling that a lot of the wussies that talk that way, have never had a strong male influence in their lives.
The crooning from hades...
Well, perhaps a good comparison would be with the way God, in the bible, told the Israelites “Do not inquire of other gods.” I.e. the real God would honor their dignity and content them in due time, but the false gods would just seek to make play toys out of them, as they anxiously sucked up. (There’s more to the theology than that, but it struck me as a salient feature.)
Basically the twits are saying: "What you're hearing is the absolute truth, but if I tell you that it is the absolute truth you will be offended at anyone claiming to know anything. So instead I'll couch it in such a way that it seems like merely my considered opinion."
Annoying as hell.
It would be in the vein of condescension or irony
“Now, this sing-songy, Valley Girl lilt, seems to be built-in to this millennial/metrosexual/pansyboy dialect that I hear everywhere.”
I think some young people react with hostility when a man does otherwise.
I have noticed this too.
It's very distracting - as if they don't want to become personally attached to it - keeping an arms length from owning it.
“Actually, I’m going to have a Starbucks(?)”
It’s called “Up Soeak” and psychologists have long noted a medium strong connection between Up Speak and an innate sense of weakness or subservience. It mimics the tone of an asked question suggesting that the speaker wants to indicate that he isn’t sure of what he’s saying.
Nearly all the "young" females sound the same as kids. Valley girl comes to mind. And the guys are nearly as bad. Annoying to listen to. But I'm sure they think the same of folks like me. d:^)
I am happy Harold gave it a name.
Hate to say this...Sean Hannity does this and I like him, but cannot listen to him any length of time.
As far as I know it’s called a rising inflection. Some guy on the radio Mark Simone in NYC was talking to yesterday was doing it constantly. It’s girlish and stupid in a male.
Hence they start with so.
"So everyone is starting their sentences with the word "so" these days.
Fast Company recently attacked the use of "so" at the start of sentences, claiming it insults your audience, undermines your credibility, and demonstrates discomfort with the subject matter.
But linguistically, the use of "so" at the beginning of sentences can serve an important function.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg notoriously uses "so" to start sentences. In a Q&A with New York Times' blog Bits last month, he dropped it four times in just the first answer.....
....But Fast Company's Hunter Thurman wrote that a speaker's use of "so" indicates something rehearsed and dumbed-down. As a result, he claims, "so" alienates your audience.
.....While [ Galina Bolden, associate professor of communication at Rutgers University] said "so" appears less frequently before answers, the journalist Michael Lewis noticed its prevalence when exploring Silicon Valley for his 2001 book "The New Thing," The New York Times reported. He claims programmers, especially of the Microsoft variety, started, or at least popularized, beginning answers with "so." Maybe that's where Zuck learned it.
"'So' cuts across the borders within the computing class just as 'like' cuts across the borders within the class of adolescent girls," he wrote. Many Silicon Valley engineers learn English as their second language — and almost all of them speak this way, according to Lewis............"
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