Teenage girls love affectations, that’s hardly news.
Affectations have a way of becoming first habits, then vices. It almost seems like we long for what Britain has, where everyone can be defined by their accents. Their politics, their education, their social status, their economic background. Not 100% definitive, obviously, but you catch my drift.
Like listening to screaming loud tunes on your ear buds, it makes you feel all bad ass rebellious and separate from ‘adults’, but when it becomes, with ease, a habit, it has pretty far reaching implications. If you still want to hear your grandchildren laugh, at some point you’re going to have to dial that back. If you wish to have a voice not like Stephen Hawkings then you better throw off this affectation pretty quickly, too, in my opinion.
I’m reminded of Moon Zappa’s 1982 cut, “Valley Girl.” That speaking style has been around for quite some time. I guess vocal fry is just a sub-part of val speak.
Can someone link to an example of the annoying kind of vocal fry OP is complaining about, that doesn’t consist of someone deliberately exaggerating and mocking it?
When you click the play button, there is about a 10-second promo of a Summer Books program. When Melissa talks in the U of Va. story, note how at the end of almost every sentence, her voice dips to a growl. (Maybe this is payback for the years of Valley Girl rising inflection that used to end every sentence.) I listen to her every day on NPR and this is her typical way of speaking. The other day she was interviewing a guy who used vocal fry (much rarer in men, so I understand), and it was seriously annoying.
Here’s a better example of vocal fry from NPR’s Allison Aubrey that I heard this morning. She doesn’t just drop her voice at the end of each sentence like Melissa Block; she growls through the whole sentence. Note that in the recorded parts when she’s speaking with the interviewee, her voice is normal, but when she narrates, the growl is continuous.
Yes, just listen to NPR (for me, Alix Spiegel is the worst offender by far) or visit a college campus. It’s a downright epidemic at both places. Count me in the ‘nails on a chalkboard’ group.
Are you serious? You’re from NH; ever been to Boston? Every college and post-college woman in the city speaks like this. Even the 30-something moms in the Boston suburbs use voice-fry and upspeak -as if they’re still in their 20s. Makes me want to gauge my eyes out.
The other thing that drives me f…ng crazy: people who start a post with, “um..”. Biggest verbiage cliche in the history of the internet.
Is that what that annoying voice over chick is doing in all those commercials? “S. E. Johnson, a family company.” The way she says “family” seriously grates and has me diving for the mute.
