'Vocal Fry' Creeping Into U.S. Speech

Science Now ^ | 12/11/2011 | Science Now

[Dallas59]

Good Example Here

[Dallas59]

You can hear it at the end of each sentence.

[thecodont]

That link features the voice of the dreadful “Powered by TellMe” robot agent at the toll-free customer service phone numbers of some major companies. It’s very grating and annoying.

I end up screaming “AGENT!” at it to dismiss it and get a real live person to speak to me.

[suijuris]

Wow! Now that I understand it enough to listen for it, it really is annoying>

[Dallas59]

Fr...eeeeeee.

[Chickensoup]

One of my daughters does this, she sounds like a 3PPD smoker

[GOP Poet]

Bookmark

[jonrick46]

I must be a result of the brain fried on drugs.

[GeronL]

Our culture is devolving very fast, this is but one small symptom.

Plus maybe ridicule would help.

[dr_lew]

It’s easy to do, I find. Just go “low and slow”. Youtube has a bunch of clips about how to practice it and amplify it into a “power fry”. Lordy.

[hinckley buzzard]

They're right. Now that I know what it is, I recognize hearing it all the time and yes, especially from women. What's up? Do they think it's sexy? When Kenny Rogers did it in his songs the women seemed to like it.

[MondoQueen]

I was wondering what that was. I hear it all the time, especially among young women, and it is very annoying.

[patriot08]

Annoying.

One of the most annoying things to me is a voice that constantly sounds like they need to clear their throat.
Example; Rachel Ray

[Hot Tabasco]

Good Example Here

You're kidding, right? That made as much sense as the calculus class I flunked in high school........

[little jeremiah]

Yikes, makes me sooo glad I’m a hermit. I’ll give it a listen later. Someone was telling me on FR - Windflier! - that young men seem to be asssuming an even worse (?) vocal mannerism - an artificially high effeminate tone to their speech. I’ve never heard it (Thankfully) but maybe he’ll chime in.

Windflier, was it you who told me about this?

So the girls sound like big frogs and the boys sound like fags. What next (I DON’T want to know).

[thecodont]

Someone was telling me on FR - Windflier! - that young men seem to be asssuming an even worse (?) vocal mannerism - an artificially high effeminate tone to their speech.

Yes, I think it was Windflier who posted that. (Howdy.)

It's gotten so rare to hear a nice baritone (or base) male voice that when I do it's like hearing music.

[Ditter]

I think I understand what you are talking about. I have noticed that young women sound like their voice is coming from deep in their throat (gravely) and yet it still has a sort of nasal(flat) sound to it(if that makes sense). I really hate it, it is sort of dead sounding.

I have also noticed that a lot of commercials on TV (especially for SUBURU) will have a person singing in a fuzzy non professional singer kind of voice with a string instrument of some kind as the only accompaniment. I think the ads are targeted towards women who talk in the “fry voice”.

[thecodont]

Bass not base. Argh.

[Chode]

can't be worse than than damn Upspeak... i that that, sounds like every sentence is a question?