Wife's extreme uptalk and vocal fry

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband is always calling me out on vocal fry. I can't help it and it drives me insane.

try to help it

I don't need anyone to dictate my speech habits thank you very much.

But actually, you have changed your speech habits. No one is born with vocal fry. You have changed your speech habits at some point in your life to "fit in" and now your husband is calling you out on it.

This above poster is saying "try to help it" because you sound....annoying.

LOL. No one is born with any language or speech habits. It is all learned, mostly subconsciously. I agree that this sounds annoying, but it is not intentional.

I think OP should start using these habits when speaking to his wife so she can hear how awful it sounds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband is always calling me out on vocal fry. I can't help it and it drives me insane.

try to help it

I don't need anyone to dictate my speech habits thank you very much.

But actually, you have changed your speech habits. No one is born with vocal fry. You have changed your speech habits at some point in your life to "fit in" and now your husband is calling you out on it.

This above poster is saying "try to help it" because you sound....annoying.

People aren't born with speech patterns at all. But that doesn't mean that they purposefully adopt or change them. Speech patterns mostly happen at a subconscious level. It's only through speech therapy that people are able to consciously change them.

There are some accents and speech patterns I find jarring or unpleasant, but I know that it's usually not the person's fault, necessarily.

I love the uptalk thing when British or Australians do it. It bothers me more when done in combo with a valley girl accent. Again, it's mainly aesthetics, but I think it also seems to be the sentence structure as well. When Brits do it, it comes off as friendlier (more like an "eh"). When valley girl types do it, it tends to take more of a negative (either judgemental or sighing) tone (more like an "uh").

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband is always calling me out on vocal fry. I can't help it and it drives me insane.

try to help it

I don't need anyone to dictate my speech habits thank you very much.

But actually, you have changed your speech habits. No one is born with vocal fry. You have changed your speech habits at some point in your life to "fit in" and now your husband is calling you out on it.

This above poster is saying "try to help it" because you sound....annoying.

LOL. No one is born with any language or speech habits. It is all learned, mostly subconsciously. I agree that this sounds annoying, but it is not intentional.

I think OP should start using these habits when speaking to his wife so she can hear how awful it sounds.

A more effective tactic would be to record the wife and play it back to her.

But even if she is aware of it, if she is listening to others all day, it might be hard for her shed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. My intent was not to judge or police her speaking, but the change was so sudden and extreme that it seemed bizarre she was not aware.

She is almost certainly aware.

She may feel neutral about it or she may actually wish she could stop but finds speaking to fit in at work becomes a day-long habit. Regardless, there is no need for you to be involved regarding this OR how your daughters speak. They will try on all kinds of attitudes and personas and vocal patterns and none is "right" or "wrong."

What? If my husband ever started speaking like a big dummy i most certainly would get involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. My intent was not to judge or police her speaking, but the change was so sudden and extreme that it seemed bizarre she was not aware.

She is almost certainly aware.

She may feel neutral about it or she may actually wish she could stop but finds speaking to fit in at work becomes a day-long habit. Regardless, there is no need for you to be involved regarding this OR how your daughters speak. They will try on all kinds of attitudes and personas and vocal patterns and none is "right" or "wrong."

What? If my husband ever started speaking like a big dummy i most certainly would get involved.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My wife recently returned to the workforce at a small nonprofit which is staffed with mostly 20-somethings. Over the past three months she has really embraced the uptalk and vocal fry thing when talking, I guess to fit in with the younger women. When she first started doing it, I thought it was a joke or something but it's really how she talks now. It is so extreme that it is almost like a parody but in the few times I dared to mention it to her, she got really upset and said she was talking normally.

Now my two daughters are trying to adapt that speech pattern.

This would make me insane, OP, I'm sorry.

Make a fun little video of the two of you chit chatting. Play it back and see if she notices anything. She likely doesn't realize she has picked up a different speech pattern.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband is always calling me out on vocal fry. I can't help it and it drives me insane.

try to help it

I don't need anyone to dictate my speech habits thank you very much.

Of course you don't. But you must know, it makes you sound dumb.

Yeah well tell that to my 6 figure salary.

It's DC, my maid makes 6 figures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the hell is uptalk?

I thought I was the only one with no clue...

I have no idea what up talk or verbal fry is. Never hears these terms before.

[Anonymous]

It use to be called "Valley Girl" and the speakers weren't viewed as very intelligent. I don't know why it would be copied by intelligent women.

[Anonymous]

I've read the whole thread with an up talk voice in my head. Very entertaining.

[Anonymous]

Uptalk and vocal fry? Damn you're old.

[Anonymous]

In her shoes, I'd appreciate you talking to me and coming up with a strategy together for eliminating this from my speech, and the kids' speech. In our house we try to stamp out using "like." But you have to be judicious about when yo remind your wife, assuming she cares and wants to go back to her old way of speaking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Monkey see monkey do. Monkey gets run over. So do you.

Another irritating thing, starting off saying so. EX. I saw you at the park. Where were you headed after ? So I was like going shopping. What did you buy ? So I bought a bag of rocks. Why did you buy a bag of rocks ? So like I could look smarter.

I hate followers. Don't be a follower.

What does this even mean?

It means they find it annoying when people start a sentence with so.

Person #1: Where did you go after work?
Person #2 : So I went to the store, and like bought a bag of rocks. So then I went to the bakery. So, what are you doing next?

[Anonymous]

I would happily listen to uptalk and vocal fry all day long if we could just like, do something about the habit lots of people (women in particular) have of like, inserting extraneous likes in their, like vocabulary. Soooo annoying.

[Anonymous]

You seem extremely critical.