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[marrec]

I never said that English always used that. It's not like I could possibly know that. What I said is that using uptalk to denote uncertainty in a statement or emphasize something is a question adds expressivity to the language. How does saying everything with uptalk add expressivity? It just takes it away.

In your limited experience with language, yes.

English is an ever evolving language that isn't limited to a single geographic temporal causality, thankfully. English in 50 years, because of it's extremely wide dispersion and extremely wide cultural background, is absolutely 100% going to be different from the English you learned when you were a kid.

It's entirely possible that in 50 years people will be asking why uptalk was used to denote questions when the context of the speech was all that was needed. Hell, in 50 years Youth Colloquial English will probably be completely unrecognizable to you as it moves from a minority dialect into a majority spoken language.

What I'm saying is that you, personally, may not understand the value of uptalk but that will not stop uptalk from taking root so you might as well teach yourself to accept it.

Edit

Or just be an old man yelling at a cloud, either or.

 

[SkyOdin]

Making personal judgements about people because of their accent or speach patterns is misguided at best, bigoted at worst. The reality is that there is a huge variety of accents, dialects, sociolects, registers, etc. in the English language. Furthermore, it is very common for people to change which accent they use based on social situation. There is no such thing as "normal" English, since every dialect and accent is equally valid.

However, most people don't actually encounter this variety. Most people are just familiar with the ways of speaking used by the people around them, and the language they see used in movies and television. Yet, what people hear on television is a particular accent that that actors are trained to speak in, and it is not an accurate portrayal of how English is spoken across the US. If someone's spoken English sounds strange to you, it is likely just a varient of the language due to differences in social class or location.

Judging people based on how they talk is old-school British classism with the potential for racism mixed in. It is pure bigotry. You should be ashamed of yourself for even considering it.

 

[CarpeDeezNutz]

The clip in the article has men doing it, albeit a bit over the top. Here's a more normal approach that you hear all the time in this Iron Man 3 trailer when he says "teacherrr, numberrr, etc"

https://youtu.be/oYSD2VQagc4?t=58

Oh wow never noticed that, sounds more subtle to me than when a woman does it.

 

[DrSlek]

Sounds like you're judging most of Australia, m8!

 

[marrec]

Oh wow never noticed that, sounds more subtle to me than when a woman does it.

A symptom of pervasive sexism. Not your fault to be sure, but yet another example of how women are constantly judged more harshly than men for doing the exact same thing.

 

[Dryk]

I slip into vocal fry sometimes when I'm sitting slumped but I don't really think anything of it.

Australians naturally do uptalk at the end of their sentences

Yep, OP must hate us

 

[PantherLotus]

i think it's sexy as heLL?

 

[Sky Chief]

I don't think it's wrong to perceive that someone who's uptalking at the very least isn't confident in what they're saying or doesn't know what they're talking about. Much like if people are having a discussion and somebody has to raise their voice or yell to make their point it comes off as them compensating for being ignorant.

 

[Two Words]

In your limited experience with language, yes.

English is an ever evolving language that isn't limited to a single geographic temporal causality, thankfully. English in 50 years, because of it's extremely wide dispersion and extremely wide cultural background, is absolutely 100% going to be different from the English you learned when you were a kid.

It's entirely possible that in 50 years people will be asking why uptalk was used to denote questions when the context of the speech was all that was needed. Hell, in 50 years Youth Colloquial English will probably be completely unrecognizable to you as it moves from a minority dialect into a majority spoken language.

What I'm saying is that you, personally, may not understand the value of uptalk but that will not stop uptalk from taking root so you might as well teach yourself to accept it.

Edit

Or just be an old man yelling at a cloud, either or.

I mean, I don't really know what I'm supposed to do about the literal physical pain that it causes to my ears in many cases.

 

[marrec]

I mean, I don't really know what I'm supposed to do about the literal physical pain that it causes to my ears in many cases.

See a doctor I guess? That's not normal.

 

[Imperfected]

I'm Ron Burgundy..?

 

[RiccochetJ]

I'll be the judge of that.

Post a recording of your voice so we can judge right back.

C'mon Dalek. Give us a listen.

 

[Spoiled Milk]

Now that I know what they are, I certainly will judge em!

That's the GAF spirit!

 

[liliththepale]

I mean, I don't really know what I'm supposed to do about the literal physical pain that it causes to my ears in many cases.

Grow up?

I don't think it's wrong to perceive that someone who's uptalking at the very least isn't confident in what they're saying or doesn't know what they're talking about. Much like if people are having a discussion and somebody has to raise their voice or yell to make their point it comes off as them compensating for being ignorant.

It is wrong because not everyone uses uptalk to display an undercurrent of questioning or lack of confidence. If you think that everyone does, that's just you projecting your sensibilities onto other people, which is in fact wrong.

 

[supernormal]

Oh wow never noticed that, sounds more subtle to me than when a woman does it.

The reason it sounds more "subtle" is because vocal fry is essentially the lowest register you can speak at, which is why you hear the individual vibrations of the vocal cords. Women generally have naturally higher registers than men so when they switch to vocal fry and back to their natural voice the difference is more apparent than with men who already have a much lower natural voice that is closer to the vocal fry register.

 

[Dalek]

C'mon Dalek. Give us a listen.

Fine.

https://youtu.be/gpHR0-yFheY

 

[Sky Chief]

is wrong because not everyone uses uptalk to display an undercurrent of questioning or lack of confidence. If you think that everyone does, that's just you projecting your sensibilities onto other people, which is in fact wrong.

You're wrong, they're not my sensibilities. I didn't just make them up, they were developed over hundreds of years through social interactions.

 

[Zoe]

It's a condition now?

Did you read the posts on the first page?

 

[marrec]

You're wrong, they're not my sensibilities. I didn't just make them up, they were developed over hundreds of years through social interactions.

No, you literally make them up. That's what drives social change is your made up sensibilities. Yours and all your peers.

Yours happen to be seemingly behind the times right now.

 

[liliththepale]

Fine.

https://youtu.be/gpHR0-yFheY

Umm... that's like nothing except for vocal fry. Is this a joke?

You're wrong, they're not my sensibilities. I didn't just make them up, they were developed over hundreds of years through social interactions.

You inherited your sensibilities from a small group of people without paying attention to how different people speak differently from you.

 

[Dalek]

Umm... that's like nothing except for vocal fry. Is this a joke?




You inherited your sensibilities from a small group of people without paying attention to how different people speak differently from you.

Ding ding ding

 

[SkyOdin]

You're wrong, they're not my sensibilities. I didn't just make them up, they were developed over hundreds of years through social interactions.

I hate to break it to you, but the English you speak probably isn't hundreds of years old. I doubt you would be able to have a conversation with someone from Elizabethan-era England without a lot of confusion.

 

[Two Words]

See a doctor I guess? That's not normal.

Audible noises causing pain is a normal physiological response.

 

[Sky Chief]

No, you literally make them up. That's what drives social change is your made up sensibilities. Yours and all your peers.

Yours happen to be seemingly behind the times right now.

Umm... that's like nothing except for vocal fry. Is this a joke?




You inherited your sensibilities from a small group of people without paying attention to how different people speak differently from you.

I hate to break it to you, but the English you speak probably isn't hundreds of years old. I doubt you would be able to have a conversation with someone from Elizabethan-era England without a lot of confusion.

Link me to one video of an accomplished person talking intelligently on something or making a compelling argument who's uptalking

 

[Two Words]

Grow up?



It is wrong because not everyone uses uptalk to display an undercurrent of questioning or lack of confidence. If you think that everyone does, that's just you projecting your sensibilities onto other people, which is in fact wrong.

How does one "grow up" from pain? Pain is pain.

 

[Brianimaniac]

It is normal to be annoyed by some things that other people do. It's really silly watching some people in here act like they're above that.

 

[marrec]

It is normal to be annoyed by some things that other people do. It's really silly watching some people in here act like they're above that.

I agree 100% with your first sentence.

However your second sentence doesn't make sense, nobody here is acting like they're above it, only recognizing that their annoyance is from a very specific and narrow cultural experience and that opening themselves up to broader cultural ways of speaking is more healthy for intelligence than closing one's mind and clinging to what's soon to be an archaic form of english.

 

[Brianimaniac]

I agree 100% with your first sentence.

However your second sentence doesn't make sense, nobody here is acting like they're above it, only recognizing that their annoyance is from a very specific and narrow cultural experience and that opening themselves up to broader cultural ways of speaking is more healthy for intelligence than closing one's mind and clinging to what's soon to be an archaic form of english.

You're arguing semantics.

You are acting like you're above it. I don't need to win an argument for it to be true.

 

[Brakke]

They're affectations so sure it's ok to judge. Everyone who speaks with one of these affections is making an active choice not to "correct" their speech patterns.

But like. What are you accomplishing by judging people for this? Are you comfortable with thinking yourself superior to someone who makes this trivial choice? Judging people for these affections is just... a boring thing to do.

 

[marrec]

You're arguing semantics. You are acting like you're above it.

I guess if that's how you want to see it.

I see it this way:

No matter how hard a few of you rail and rally your tiny, insignificant linguistic ships against the prevailing wind and current of language evolution, you will be left behind by change.

Better to steer your tiny, insignificant ships into the change and see what it brings you, rather than bitterly defend anachronisms of the past.

There have been captains like you (you meaning, those who can't accept change) before, complaining into an endless void about things the next generation have left behind, and there will be captains like you in the future. Nobody will ever care about the ship who has foolishly turned against the prevailing wind.

 

[liliththepale]

Link me to one video of an accomplished person talking intelligently on something or making a compelling argument who's uptalking

http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_...e_to_talk_like_men_to_be_taken_seriously.html

You're arguing semantics.

You are acting like you're above it. I don't need to win an argument for it to be true.

That argument is circular. If he's acting like he's above it, then you're acting like you're above him.

 

[CarpeDeezNutz]

A symptom of pervasive sexism. Not your fault to be sure, but yet another example of how women are constantly judged more harshly than men for doing the exact same thing.

Maybe but it seems to me to be more like what this poster says

The reason it sounds more "subtle" is because vocal fry is essentially the lowest register you can speak at, which is why you hear the individual vibrations of the vocal cords. Women generally have naturally higher registers than men so when they switch to vocal fry and back to their natural voice the difference is more apparent than with men who already have a much lower natural voice that is closer to the vocal fry register.

I generally like different sounding accents from people, never bothered me tbh. It's like the person's own vocal signature.

 

[IfritTower]

You're not a horrible person for subconsciously judging, but I would definitely spend some time and think why you automatically judge people who do this. This a stereotypically feminine speech pattern, and its particularly linked with young women and gay men. Oftentimes, the reason that we automatically judge something as innocuous as speech pattern is because of its associations with discouraged traits. Having this attitude doesn't mean you're a raging misogynist or anything like that, but do question what you have internalized that makes you automatically dislike someone with that voice pattern.

 

[RibMan]

Devil's Advocate argument:

Given what you just said in a professional context, doesn't that extend to other contexts? If somebody speaks to me with uptalk, it makes them sound less confident to me. This effects how I perceive them. Maybe I take on a perception that they are a consistently unsure person, for example. Is that wrong?

I honestly don't think it should.

The professional context is a context that is designed to represent a firm and not a person. Your perception of a person shouldn't be based on whether or not they've had speech training. People come from all different parts of a country/the world, and thus their intonation and inflection rules might not be the same as yours.

 

[Staccat0]

I've never heard someone who I've genuinely thought was intelligent talk with vocal fry. So, no, it's not wrong to judge people who do this.

You don't think Ira Glass is intelligent?

 

[victreeb3l]

Some of the smartest people that I've met in tech speak with uptalk or vocal fry so it is pretty rude to judge them solely based on that. I tend to use uptalk and "like" a little too liberally sometimes.

 

[Pyrrhus]

Public speakers with vocal fry, I can guarantee at least one person in your meeting wants to crush your throat with whatever office supplies are handy at the moment when you get up to speak. At least two people if I'm there.

 

[sphagnum]

Vocal fry sounds kind of sexy to me.

 

[Tain]

Vocal fry hate is irrational. No one is doing it intentionally to annoy people. It's just how words come out of their mouth.


This American Life covered this in an episode last year. They broke down and dispelled some myths associated with vocal fry.

what I was going to post

 

[marrec]

Public speakers with vocal fry, I can guarantee at least one person in your meeting wants to crush your throat with whatever office supplies are handy at the moment when you get up to speak. At least two people if I'm there.

Aww, you sound so small and petty. I understand that office environments are difficult, but try not to imagine brutal violence on those who have different involuntary affectations ya?

 

[Dalek]

You don't think Ira Glass is intelligent?

I love Ira, but that This American Life episode he did was hilarious-because HE talks with vocal fry. Hell, maybe he's patient zero for this epidemic.

 

[Staccat0]

I love Ira, but that This American Life episode he did was hilarious-because HE talks with vocal fry. Hell, maybe he's patient zero for this epidemic.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. He talked about that and pointed it out. The whole episode was about how it's basically sexist bullshit at the end of the day.

 

[Daingurse]

Vocal fry doesn't really bother me, watching the video I barely seem to notice it. But uptalking, now that I know what it is, actually pisses me off lol. It just sounds really annoying. I don't think it's right to judge someone based on how they speak, and try not to, but man do I find uptalking pretty irritating to listen to.

 

[gutter_trash]

Vocal Fry is fine,

Spoiler

i kind of find it sexy

Uptalk is not okay, in fact, Uptalk is wrong

 

[Pyrrhus]

Aww, you sound so small and petty. I understand that office environments are difficult, but try not to imagine brutal violence on those who have different involuntary affectations ya?

Hey man. It's not an affectation or obnoxious tick or anything that I should work on. It's just my own individual, entirely legit way of being in that sort of situation. That's the way my tolerance for irritating sounds naturally developed as I went through puberty. Don't dare judge me for it.

 

[M0nochromatic]

It's normal and harmless for 99.9% of the population.

If it is an issue for someone, I wish them luck in finding ways to cope with it.

 

[marrec]

Hey man. It's not an affectation or obnoxious tick or anything that I should work on. It's just my own individual, entirely legit way of being in that sort of situation. That's the way my tolerance for irritating sounds naturally developed as I went through puberty. Don't dare judge me for it.

I think uptalk is more socially and scientifically understandable than wanting to violently injure someone simply because they talk differently.

In fact, your affliction probably has a DSM designation. I am absolutely not judging your state of mental health, but a check up isn't out of the question ya!

 

[quesalupa]

I guess it's as reasonable as any other prejudice.

 

[Pyrrhus]

I think uptalk is more socially and scientifically understandable than wanting to violent injure someone simply because they talk differently.

In fact, your affliction probably has a DSM designation.

Totally, dawg.

 

[SolVanderlyn]

Vocal fry always reminds me of the Castle of Aughhhhhh.

Hahahahaha

Perfect