Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Seriously, all I need to hear now is that men are imitating that "vocal fry" that appears to be afflicting American women, and I'll run screaming from the room.
My oldest child's girlfriend both uptalks and uses vocal fry. It is the most grating phonation I have ever encountered. Absolutely makes my skin crawl. I have to leave the room whenever she's around.
I honestly don't even know what this article is talking about. Something about inflections and always asking questions?? No idea what is going on here.
Like they point out --- it's the trend to sound like the Kardashians who they idolize --- I suspect the types who imitate their vocal patterns are stupid enough to watch that show to know how they should act and talk.
It's one thing for little girls to do this but men and older women are also.
American men have started to talk like WOMEN: Californian study finds that males are rising in pitch at the end of sentences
Actually, this is not really anything new. Sociolinguists have long noted that language shifts--including shifts in vocabulary, pitch and pronunciation--are often initiated by women, with men following afterwards. It has going on a long, long time and has nothing to do with being a "metrosexual."
Every child learns how to talk from Mom. Dad's speech is a secondary influence unless there is no Mom around.
Women's speech changes more rapidly than male speech because women are more vocal and more attuned to vocalization than men. Speech is, in general, a more important woman's tool than a man's.
With increasingly more single women rearing children at a later age, after speech patterns have become fixed, it's no wonder more boys are sounding like their mothers now.
Women first began pronouncing 'for' as 'fur'. Men often pick up the most common elements of feminine speech quickly, as it helps them land a mate. It took no time at all for men to commonly pronounce for and fur, with a drag on the R, just like the gals say it.
One of the latest things I've noticed is women dragging out 'me'. The word now is commonly pronounced 'meee', with a rise in the center and the E vowel dragged, by younger women, but most males haven't picked up on it yet.
Both sexes no longer pronounce 'tour' as they once did. The old pronunciation was 'too-wer' and the current pronunciation is 'tore'. The U has disappeared from the word when vocalized.
It affects me because for a while one of my sons was doing it. He'd make a statement like "We're going to the store. No?" and making statements into questions. I guess he picked it up from his friends because no one in my family talks like that.
Haha, I'm not sure you have the right stuff to be a parent.
And just so you know, adding the word "yes?" and "no?" to the end of a sentence is not "uptalking" and it's actually kind of European to my untrained ear.
Your kids will talk how they talk with whatever outside influence they get, and you will live with it. This isn't controllable. You can smack them for using bad language or correct them for using improper grammer but this kind of stuff...nope. Maybe it's a phase, maybe it's not, but we all pick up accents and whatnot from those we are around.
Haha, I'm not sure you have the right stuff to be a parent.
And just so you know, adding the word "yes?" and "no?" to the end of a sentence is not "uptalking" and it's actually kind of European to my untrained ear.
Your kids will talk how they talk with whatever outside influence they get, and you will live with it. This isn't controllable. You can smack them for using bad language or correct them for using improper grammer but this kind of stuff...nope. Maybe it's a phase, maybe it's not, but we all pick up accents and whatnot from those we are around.
I didn't smack him but I asked him why he was making everything sound like a question. He talks normal now. It is controllable actually. Once you're made conscious of something, you can make a conscious effort to change. It's also a fact that people can change accents. Just like when you learn a foreign language, you can accept having an accent, or you can pronounce words correctly, it's all habit.
yes its no longer a mans world it is a womans world. i doubt very much that women will like all aspects of the new world.
but i dont think we will go back in time unless we have a meltdown.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
that appears to be afflicting American women, and I'll run screaming from the room.
