I live in California, and while I have heard this very seldom outside of tv, I’ve always associated it with 'valley speak." Yet the most flagrant abuser I’ve ever encountered was a coworker from Quebec, and I have no idea where she picked it up nor why she was so consistent in using it.
She also had another infuriating vocal tic, which was starting most of her comments or responses in meetings with the word “Actually…” It was her version of “well,” just a placeholder word to occupy space in time while she got her thought together. It had the effect of making everything she said sound confrontational, even if she didn’t mean it that way, and even if she was really intending for it to be a collaborative comment.
Me: “Where should we go from here? We could just send this doc out already…”
Her: “ACKsually… So I was thinking? We should get some of the product designers into a meeting? And we can go over the functional specs with them and do a new draft for marketing by Monday?”
Looking at the Language Log link, and thinking about this a little more, I don’t think it’s so much a lack of self-confidence but a desire to project a lack of self-confidence, even in the possible presence of self-confidence.
If I were leading a sorority meeting, I might be totally confident in my pronouncement of the plans for the charity fundraiser, but might try to sound less confident and more interrogatory to get buy in. And if I actually did lack in self-confidence, I might well imitate this speech pattern if I saw it used by influential women in the sorority.
Or the Midwestern “dont’cha know?”, or the Irish “wouldn’t it now?”. Now that I think about it, ending a statement with an interrogative is pretty common in a lot of regional dialects.
“Uptalking,” as you called it, is also a mechanism for retaining control of the conversation. If the speaker inflected down, it would give you an opportunity to butt in with your own comment. By inflecting up, they instead indicate that they are still speaking. It can also act as a prompt for you to backchannel (indicating that you are engaged with what they are saying).
Yep. It’s a good way to not sound bitchy, demanding, over-confident, or what have you. I also tend to subconsciously do it (Michigander here) when I’m trying to be polite. Like when a server asks me what I want to order, I’ll say something like, “I’ll have the spinach mushroom ravioli?”
Let me assure you: precisely the opposite. At least amongst men you’d actually want to attract. I’d hope. From your contributions here.
I’m done with the staccato sentences. Now.
Fascinated by the suggestion that it connotes Valley Girl speak.
It is a marked component of Oz speech patterns (as observed above) but it does not connote Valley Girl here. There are various Australian accents, but the one that most seems to use the rising inflection seems to be associated with the Bogan culture. Which is kind of long way from Valley Girls.
To my ears, it projects insecurity and cultural cringe, as though the speaker doubts that he/she will be accepted at their word and is constantly seeking confirmation of acceptance from the listener.
The Wiki article fails to note that the “Valley Girls” who are attributed with beginning this phenomenon acquired it from the surfers at the beaches of Malibu and north, just on the other side of the Santa Monica mountains from the Valley.
The first time I heard that particular quirk, once I’d noticed it I said “Are you interviewing for Jeopardy? Everything you’re saying is a question.” Sometimes I am rather uncouth like that.
There was one woman I talked to for awhile. She would indicate she was done with a sentence by saying (or typing, we chatted a lot) … anyway… It was quite irritating, and one of the reasons I stopped talking to her. She was also an atrocious speller, and wld tpe lkk ths a lt.
Well it depends. My 12 year old girl does it occasionally and is mocked by her mother and I until she runs to her room and locks the door.
The copious use of the word ‘like’ sprinkled into everyday speech also bugs the shit out of me and I call her on every incident (unless she uses it correctly of course).
If it’s a group of people who have taken the same classes together for a while, it’s possible that they’re either copy-mirroring or group-mirroring. One is where there is an “in” group which is admired by others (whether consciously or not), and the other is where the group consists of most of the class. Despite how intelligent and independent people like to think they are, speech mirroring happens in all walks of professional life. I do it myself and can pick up accents in foreign countries I visit within a week, sounding to the point where people frown and ask me “I thought you were from the United States; why do you have a South African accent?” or such.
Exactly. My mother mocked me when I started talking that way and I thought she was being quite a bitch at the time but I’m really grateful to her now. Maybe it is completely unrelated to the “Valley Girl” phenomenon but that’s exactly what it brings to mind for me and I will automatically question the speaker’s intelligence and/or maturity level when I hear it. Australians, however, sound delightful.
“There’s a beer in the cooler” with rising pitch at the end would only be a question if it is being used to confirm someone else’s statement that there is a beer in the cooler.
“There’s a beer in the cooler.”
“There’s a beer in the cooler?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a beer in the cooler” can’t mean “Is there a beer in the cooler?” AFAIK.
Like I say, I USED to be able to use such constructs and be understood. Increasingly, I can’t. I don’t know where I acquired the habit. Possibly from Western PA - I’ll occasionally drop my “to be” and do that “car needs washed.” thing.
