| User | Thread poster: Tom in London Off topic: I can't stand this: the Glottal Fry phenomenon |
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:34
 Member (2008)
Italian to English
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Quote "
The Creaky Voice is everywhere. At least half (the author's estimate) of all American women speak with a rasp, rattle or gargle, a groggy or gravelly voice. It might have already spread to your family. If not, you probably know someone who speaks with the Creaky Voice."
I hate to say this, but men do it too.
I hope they all stop, soon.
Here's what it is, with a demonstration video:
http://squibbage.blogspot.com/2009/07/creaky-voice-craze.html
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Jenny Forbes 
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:34
 Member (2006)
French to English
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| | Annoying, isn't it? | Jan 30 |
Amusing article, Tom. Yes "creaky voice" and "perky chirp" are annoying, aren't they?
Mainly, I think, because they're so obviously adopted and articifical.
In Britain, however, the fashion seems to be the dismal sounding "nasal whine", especially prevalent in Estuarine English - I can't point you to a video but just watch any vox pop on TV where youngish women are being interviewed.
Whatever happened to the crisp, resonant tones taught at RADA?? (Not that I'd want us to return to the days of Brief Encounter - "Oh Elec, Elec, why are your vowels so flet?")
Perkily,
Jenny
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David Wright
Austria
Local time: 22:34
Member (2007)
German to English
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| | Have you nothing better to worry about | Jan 30 |
than to start moaning about how people speak? Please remember that what any one person perceives as being attractive (or unattractive) in language will be perceived as the opposite by someone else. It is entirely subjective. (for impressive evidence see the studies on UK dialects as viewed by UK and US speakers).
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Carole Paquis
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:34
Member (2007)
English to French
| | Ok, since you started it... | Jan 30 |
What about English women ever increasing pitch when they get annoyed? that's been annoying me for the last 20 years.
They start with their normal voice and go up and up and up and up, until they reach shrieking levels, all in one breath.
I guess it's one of those things I had to get used to. But, hey, ultimately, they do what they want, it's their language.
Carole PAQUIS
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:34
Member (2008)
Italian to English
TOPIC STARTER |
Carole Paquis wrote:
What about English women ever increasing pitch when they get annoyed? that's been annoying me for the last 20 years.
They start with their normal voice and go up and up and up and up, until they reach shrieking levels, all in one breath.
I guess it's one of those things I had to get used to. But, hey, ultimately, they do what they want, it's their language.
Carole PAQUIS
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I wouldn't know. I'm not English.
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Jack Doughty
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:34
Member (2000)
Russian to English
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George Bernard Shaw on the subject:
"It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him".
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:34
Member (2008)
Italian to English
TOPIC STARTER |
Jack Doughty wrote:
George Bernard Shaw on the subject:
"It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him". |
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GBS and I are fellow-countrymen
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Tomás Cano Binder, CT
Spain
Local time: 22:34
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
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What I particularly dislike about that phenomenon is the fact that a person could say ten sentences without the slightest intonation, thus making the speech so monotonous that you could actually kill a cow out of boredom as we say in Spain.
Thank God these people tend to say "And so...!!!" or "And then...!!!" in a much higher note so that you can wake up every now and then.
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Neil Coffey
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:34
Member (2009)
French to English
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| | Functions and ubiquity of creak voice | Jan 30 |
It isn't the most studied linguistic phenomenon there is, but in general creaky voice appears to be used by many speakers of both English and various other languages with specific functions (e.g. marking "paragraph" boundaries during speech).
So asking "why do speakers use creaky voice?" is a bit like asking "why do speakers of some languages use vowel harmony?" or "why do speakers of so many languages use a rise in pitch to mark stressed syllables?" or... well, pretty much any question about why speakers of language(s) X use feature Y -- at the end of the day, it's an available mechanism that speakers of the language have evolved to use.
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Nicole Schnell
United States
Local time: 13:34
 Member
English to German
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| | Real life vs. movies/commercials | Jan 30 |
I only know one woman in person who speaks like that.
My neighbor, who is 76 years old and suffers from throat cancer.
You might want to add this to your statistics.
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Giuseppina Gatta, MA (Hons)
United States
Member (2005)
English to Italian
+ ...
| | I completely agree with you | Jan 31 |
Tom in London wrote:
Quote "
The Creaky Voice is everywhere. At least half (the author's estimate) of all American women speak with a rasp, rattle or gargle, a groggy or gravelly voice. It might have already spread to your family. If not, you probably know someone who speaks with the Creaky Voice."
I hate to say this, but men do it too.
I hope they all stop, soon.
Here's what it is, with a demonstration video:
http://squibbage.blogspot.com/2009/07/creaky-voice-craze.html |
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I hate to be judgmental and I try to avoid it, but in this case I cannot NOT agree with you. Every time I hear that voice I watch out...I have only had bad experiences with women which talk like that
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:34
Member (2008)
Italian to English
TOPIC STARTER |
Giuseppina Gatta, MA (Hons) wrote:
I hate to be judgmental and I try to avoid it, but in this case I cannot NOT agree with you. Every time I hear that voice I watch out...I have only had bad experiences with women which talk like that |
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Yes, Giuseppina - there does seem to be a correlation.
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neilmac
Spain
Local time: 22:34
Member (2007)
Spanish to English
+ ...
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David Wright wrote:
than to start moaning about how people speak? Please remember that what any one person perceives as being attractive (or unattractive) in language will be perceived as the opposite by someone else. It is entirely subjective. (for impressive evidence see the studies on UK dialects as viewed by UK and US speakers).
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Yes indeed, judge not lest ye be judged, croaky voice or not. I personally can't wait to emigrate to the USA now that it turns out I'm the nearest thing to Sean Connery at budget rates, or maybe Ewan MacGregor's handsome-sounding cousin. Beauty is in the eye (or ear) of the beholder. My Spanish friend says she finds the intonation of many English (and Russian) speakers annoyingly whingey, whereas I find the same with some L. Am accents, but you can't let yourself be dictated to by these kind of prejudices unless you want to live in a box.
PS: I do take exception to some of the blog author's assertions and assumptions, for example, if I were to move to Texas, I would no doubt find myself talking with a twang to try to fit in - it happens to me about 5 minutes off the bus when I'm in England and I've always instinctively felt it was the right thing to do.
[Edited at 2012-01-31 10:40 GMT]
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The translation workplace 
