Vocal Fry and Other Speech Trends

I have no ear for it. Yeah, you know, before Casey we asked him to choose which one to do first, any with vocal fry, and I didn't even notice. Yeah, you got the fry filter. Do you think that means that I do it? Because I was trying to think. I know that I up speak sometimes they're up talk, but it's fairly infrequent. I think, yeah, and um, but I don't know if I like vocal fire or not. I have no idea whatsoever. I don't know. Did I just do it? Just now? I did? Didn't I? I

don't know. We'll have to listen to the playback. I guess I just did it. Listen to the playback that sounds like normal speaking to me. I know, man, huh, because well, we'll get into this, but it's uh. A lot of people contend that there's a lot of sexism going on with it because I just said it, and people probably won't write in and say anything about it. But or a woman, people would probably write in and

say the way you talk is so annoying. And you know what, I think like a lot of people are trying to dance around this or prove that it's sexist. It's like, no, on its face, this is a sexist argument that's going on right now. Yeah, I mean, just look around. We had Tracy and Hollyan recently and they talked about emails that they get about their voices being shrill. And I remember other podcast esters here we had in

the past. Other women who had podcasts would get just lots of email detailing the quality of their voice, and we don't really get those much occasionally. I guess. No, you want to have some fun, go on to iTunes and find a podcast that is hosted by women and read the reviews, and then go read the reviews for a podcast that's hosted by men. It's yeah, it is. And when somebody like Bob Garfield from MPR calls the

calls vocal fry repulsive. That's a really good point for everyone else to stand back and be like, what's this guy's real problem, because repulsive is not a correct word to use to describe vocal fry. It's wrong. It's it's wrong. It's like it's like he's pointing at something else, but he thinks he's pointing at the vocal fry. Who knows what's going on, but yes, on its face, it's a misogynistic argument. That's that's being carried out, putting out there

right now. I don't plan on dancing around it at all. We're not dancing. Uh. And it is all very ironic considering that vocal fry can be traced back to British men in the nineteen sixties. Yeah, I mean think about like Sean Connery. Okay, I'm thinking about him. Okay, that was it had nothing to do with vocal I just wanted to see if I get you to think about Sean Conner. Well, apparently they traced it back to sixty four when British men the mid sixties used it to

denote superior social standing. And I think I'm trying to imagine my head and I think it's like, you know, you shall not question me like that kind of thing. Yeah, like its masculinity and uh an into a statement by lowering your voice fry. It sounded like Welliam Randolph Hurst by the way, a lot like that. But but it makes sense also it basically when you hear vocal fry, it is and will tell you exactly what it is

in a second, but you know what it is. Um, when you hear vocal fry, it denotes that you can't be bothered, to be enthusiastic about it, or in the case of British, another way to put it is it's very dry way, yeah, kind of you know. Um and they they say they linguists. Vocal fry and its current use among younger girls or millennials in general, is a way to indicate like I'm over it, or I am not to be bothered with this any longer, or in some cases it makes them seem authoritative. We'll get more

into that. So in other words, it doesn't mean they're dumb and don't know how to talk correctly. They're actually trying to accomplish something, but speaking in a certain way like every other human on earth exactly. I just did it again. This is really gonna make me look at myself, I think, I think, I I think, well, actually, let's talk about up speak. This is gonna be all this is vocal fry, it's up speak. It's using the word like all these vocal mannerisms and ticks maybe that people

have these days because language changes and evolves. We don't talk like we did sixty years ago. No, like, for example, the mid Atlantic accent is gone. What was that? That was the radio announcer. Yeah, that was kind of No, not really, I think that was the antithesis of it. It was more like, um, all right, uh, George Plimpton, Frasier Crane, Mr Burns. It's like it's like the difference is split between British and you know, um, Eastern American.

I thought you were just naming old white dudes kind of. But I mean, it was the language of the aristocracy in the first half of the twentieth century, right, it is gone now. And they think that it was basically run out by guys like Jimmy Cagney and yeah and um, Marlon Brando, and that the way that they talked was not like that, and they made their style of talking,

which is how we talk now. We're like super Brando now right, Uh is a result of mid Atlantic going away being replaced by this Well, well, it's not really my theory. I'm sure there are a lot of people that agree. I think that language does evolve, and that the people that the Garfields of the world, the Bob Garfields, not the cat Garfields. It's like, don't dray Garfield. And uh. The ones who rail against it so much, I think

are like see and say like a lot too. But people it we also say, um, I get called out for saying um, yeah, I get it. It's fine. I think though, you go ahead. And so I think those people are just they're feeling like they're not relevant any longer, and no one wants to be a dinosaur. And so I don't understand the language these young women are speaking, which is bs because a lot of younger people, men and women speak that way. It's just called the way

the younger generation speaks. And it's not like you, old man, right, so just go off to pasture, which is not the case. I don't think anybody's trying to make this the older middle aged white man feel irrelevant. We haven't. We're on our way there anyway, and I feel irrelevant. But it has nothing to do with up speak or vocal fry. It's the music these kids are listening to these days.

But I think I think you have nailed it on the head though, like like, it is a form of contempt for being replaced by something new, something that's different. And as we'll see, especially when it comes to linguistics, UM, younger girls tend to be at the bleeding edge of linguistic changes. So UM the perhaps and this is all we want to just make sure you guys understand that we understand this total pop psychology on our part. But it's also it's intuitive, it makes a lot of sense.

But the idea that UM, older middle aged white men who are threatened by vocal fry or find it repulsive or pugnant or whatever, UM, they are projecting their their sense of being replaced, of being irrelevant, being put out to pasture. I agree wholeheartedly. I think that's exactly what. There's not enough to control the free world for since the beginning of time, right which the fact that they do is still UM says that's the reason why we're

even having this conversation. That's the reason why some women find the need to go to speech therapists to get rid of their vocal fry, which is something that some even podcasters have done. All right, so let's talk up talk real quick, up talk or valley girls speak as when you in a sentence, UM as if you're asking a question like that, and that has been a thing

for a long time. Um, there was a first of all. Two, we should point out that most of the studies we're gonna put in here, terrible social psychology studies funk, almost all of them, well because they just they never do it right. You could do some decent studies on this, I think, but for instance, this one uh at California, San Diego, they did a close acoustical analysis of twenty three Southern Californians perfect sample size. Yeah, two didn't show

up from very diverse backgrounds. Apparently, I don't know how diverse you can get among twenty three people. But they said, here you have two tasks. UM, give directions with a map and then describe a sitcom clip. And they found that UM, women did use up talk twice as often as men. But UM in making declarative statements like my appointment is at nine o'clock. Men and women, um use rises the same, So like basically men did the same

thing with that kind of statement. And then the other one that makes sense to me is when giving directions. A lot of people use up talk because it's you're sort of asking a question, like, you know, go up to the McDonald's a memorial drive. It's basically saying, do you understand what I'm saying? Are you following me? Yeah? It's almost it's funny. I wondered this chuck about up talking in particular. Um is it? Is it like a way of kind of in inadvertently mocking your listener, Like

men trail off very frequently when women start talking. So if women evolved to basically keep men engaged at the end of each sentence, like yeah, are you still with me? Do I have to keep leaving you along by the hand in this conversation where you know, if that's where it originally came from. Place holding or floor holding is another reason they found that women use up talk because they want to give um the listener the idea that they're not done talking yet, don't interrupt me, And it

might make sense maybe women are interrupted more than men. Oh, I would say that's a distinct possibility. Um, there's been a bit of a linguistic trace to this whole thing, to up speak, in particular vocal fry. I couldn't find, you know where they think the origin of it was, But with ups there was a UM I believe. She was a linguist named Cynthia Macklemore back in University of

Texas in Austin UM. She studied a sorority house on campus there and was the first person to detect up speak, which became known as or which was already I guess known as as Valley girl. But she she didn't coin the term up speak, but she was the first to think to really study it. UM. And then a guy named James Gorman coined the term up speak in like

two years later. But maclemore traced in this UM sorority house the origin of the up speak to the very popular girls from l A. Although you canna say to one sorority sister, no, I'm I'm wondering though, if there is this, like a patient zero of this in the United States. UM, back in l A, there's the Valley girl talk that is clearly related to up speak, right, and that movie was huge, right, so back in the sixties,

they've traced it back to Australia or New Zealand. So it is possible, this is my own pet theory here that some very popular girl moved from Australia or New Zealand to Los Angeles, wowed her friends. We started emulating the way she talked, which is up speak, and it's spread from there. You know. Now they think about the Australian accent. It is sort of up speaking, isn't it. Yeah,

a little bit. Yeah, they're like because there's like basically like you're getting like hitting the ribs with their elbow just from the way they're talking, Like, yeah, you're following along. Yeah, yeah, it's very interesting. So let's let's take a break, man, take a break man. Yeah, okay, alright, we're back. This stuff fascinates me. By the way, I could I could be a linguist. I could study linguistics and be a linguistics researcher and specialist linguists I like linguistic or linguistic.

Yeah sure, if you're a year old girl, that would be a widespread word twenty years from now, right, and people like Bob Garfield would say, we remember when we called it all right, So specifically, let's just talk about the what vocal for I actually is in the throat. Um glottalization is probably the more scientific term, and what it is. It's a it's a vibration when your voice falls and your vocal cords flutter very slowly, um, because

they can't make the A tone any longer at that register. Right, It's called chaotic flapping, right, chaotic glottal flapping. I like it, yeah, And it sounds like it would hurt, but it actually doesn't, except although I think most um, your nose and throat guys will tell you that, um, if you did this in a sustained manner yelling for a while, yeah, you could damage your vocal yell a vocal Friday, I guess

he almost tried. I didn't. I was like, I'm not doing that, yeah, because I associate it with falling off of a sentence and not being right, you know, which is where it's usually placed these days. But this the author of this article on Husta, first Voice and current there's become the grabster of late Oh yeah, yeah, the modern times grabster. Oh boy, Well, no, grabs are still a legend. Yeah, I'm just saying this person who stepped

in to fill in the void a little bit. Well, let me say too quickly that I'm doing nothing but listening to my voice right now, and I can't imagine what it's like to constantly be worried about that because usually we come in here and so safe haven. I don't think twice a about how I sound, they sound how I sound, But just like put yourself into the microscope like that, which is I think a lot of

women in broadcasting probably like suffer from that. I just said like like five times, you know, but I don't care who cares. You're a man, You're white man ag eighteen forty nine. Yeah, still under forty nine. Yeah. Is that the cut off point? Then I'll become Bob Garfield? Oh man, Garfield's gonna hate this for this. Uh So Garfield is not the only one. There are plenty of women out there calling out younger women saying it's a disempowering act to speak like this. Um Naomi Wolf is

one of them. She wrote an article that I read, and she said it projects uncertainty and weakness and low intelligence. Uh I doubt if she thinks it's the same one men do it, which is therein is it's as black and white as you can be, Like, what's the difference? Well, yeah,

I think that it's ultimately the thing. I think that that kind of is a I think that argument misses the point and it pops up a lot people who defend girls and women's right to vocal fry or up speak or say like or just as another one, you're very guilty of that. It's like hedging your your actions, Like I was just saying, not like I'm saying like this is what I'm saying, it's I was just saying, like,

I'm going to tone it down a little bit. Well, it's the same thing with women feeling like they need to apologize all the time. Sure, using sorry a lot, um with vocal fry in particular, though there's it doesn't it doesn't really denote anything like what the people who are saying it it does does like, it doesn't necessarily denote that you don't have any confidence in what you're saying. Um, I could see something like hedging things with just a

lot or saying sorry a lot. Maybe so, But the idea that um, women have to be given advice on how to speak to pep up in this you know, male dominated world. Again, I feel like it misses the point. I think that the better argument is to basically say, hey, UM, what's the name of the mirror you're looking into their buddy? What's your problem? Like, really, honestly, what is your problem? Not why you know? Yes, let's get on the bandwagon and rail against girls and women who do this and

totally ignore men that do. But what's the real problem? And I think ultimately the real problem is these men have, whether they realize it or not, UM identified girls as significant agents of change that are bringing along a different world than these men grew up and were accustomed to UM.

And and they're right in a lot of ways. There's actually UM studies that point to women and especially young girls, as the agents have changed when it comes to grammar, vocabul larry UM and speech patterns in the Western world for hundreds of years. Now, UM, did you read did you read a little bit about that study? Which one? So there was one in UM, I believe two thousand nine. And get this, these two finished researchers poured over six

thousand letters, six thousand letters and um. They were from fourteen seventeen to sixteen eighty one, and they found written letters. They found frond these letters in the Western world that um, women tended to adopt new world new words faster, discard old words faster, and um just change their grammar and uh speech patterns are writing patterns much quicker than men did. And then other studies have shown that men tend to pick up on this about ten to twenty years later.

So I think, what's going on When you're saying, well, men do it too, It's like, yeah, men didn't do it at first, men are starting to do it now. So if you take all this as as fact and correct scientifically, then what we're seeing now is the widespread adoption of a change in speech pattern that began twenty years ago with younger women right in the valley and has spread to the rest of culture. Um and is

being adopted. And this change to the rules of grammar, there are rules to how you talk and address people. That that's what's being railed against the change. But really, ultimately, again speaking from a pop psychology standpoint, it's the world is changing, and these guys feel threatened by it because they don't know what's going to come after this. Nothing, that's the answer. People getting getting all worked up about the way people talk is just it's folly. To me,

it's nothing. It's language. It changes. Nothing bad is going to happen. They're gonna wake up tomorrow in the world's gonna be exactly the same, right, They're just not gonna like it the way some people talk. I think also those it's deeper than that that. It's like they do

have something to fear. They do have like their nest egg to to be lost in there in the stock market when it drops automatically, or girls are going to take their money, yeah exactly, you know, or not being being able to be employable but still needing a job at age seventy. You know. Like, I think there is a lot to fear, and I think it's being projected onto girls who vocal fry. Agreed, Okay, I'm all over the place. Let's take a break. I need to regain

my composure, all right, all right, chuckers. So you're kind of talking about, um, you know why people vocal fry, right, and um, there's some pretty good answers to it that

have been studied. Um. In addition, to like up speak where you are it's a placeholder where you're saying, don't interrupt me, there's more to come, or are you following this because I'm really trying to keep you engaged here, you know, like when you hear someone, when you hear an interrogative at the end of a statement, you're immediately like, oh, I'm I'm expected to respond, so I better be paying attention. So this is almost like tricking people into paying attention.

That's another way to do it. It sounds like a pretty good move to me. On the other side again, Uh, there's the idea that it says that women are unsure of their opinion or anybody who uses up speak unsure their opinion. Um, By by keeping it a question, it suggests that you can easily back off of it and to your statement that much exactly. And I actually saw something.

It was a two thousand one article in The Guardian about up speak in particular, and um they were saying that some people believe that up speak became prevalent as a result of PC, like the political correctness movement, to where it gives you the chance to be like but I don't really agree with that, you know, depending on the micro expressions of the person exactly. Yeah. Um, and that one actually, that one kind of holds water in a sense because we've definitely entered a second phase of

like the PC movement. It's definitely been a surgeon it about the same time as the surgeon up speaker with it becoming widespread. It's possibility. Again, no one has any idea at this point, but those are kind of the two sides for up speak with vocal fry, it is um. The critics of it say that it it suggests that you are you sounded unenthusiastic. And on the other side, Yeah, that's actually one of the tools that it it is that maybe they're unenthusiastic about what they're saying. But you

also said that it's um. It's been found to be employed, especially by younger girls when they're trying to sound authoritative. I mean, that's what some linguists have said. Uh, here's another terrible study for you, and this one got a lot of press. I remember when it came out that you will have a harder time getting a job, um

if you use vocal fry and up speak. And for this one, uh, they had two different recording recordings they played too, and four hundred women for a range of groups asked them to rate the speakers and who who you might hire, and no one wanted to hire the vocal fryers. And what they came out with later was, oh, by the way, we didn't just use regular people who

happened to vocal fry. We got people to vocal fry on purpose, like to act it out and to do an accent, which is just throw the whole study out the window. Then we'll see in their in their defense, I'm sure this was all in the study, but the people in the media who reported on it didn't bother to read the study. They read the abstract, and then that's where all the headlines the tour through the news

cycle came from. Right, So the idea that, um, these people who were who were trained as part of the study to speak in vocal fry, we're not native vocal fry speakers. The idea is that that they came off sounding like robotic and stilted in that it really has nothing to do with vocal fright. It's like you wouldn't hire somebody who's doing a bad mock British accent like

me doing what. I don't know, like they hired what if they hired me to do a study on like what British people thought of their accents and they're like, let's get Chuck to do it, so do it? Well, No, of course not, but terrible mate. Kind of funny. Actually, Uh, a lot of our colleagues, I mean we're kind of getting on this late. A lot of our colleagues have already covered this. Um, I were glass. Um did a segment on vocal fry and he said that listeners always

complained about young women reporting on our show. Um, they used to complain about like and up speak, but now it's vocal fry and he said, I am a vocal fryer self admitted, and no one ever writes me about that. Yeah, exactly. And then um our buddy Roman Mars the Great Invisible his producer Katie Mingle. At one point they were getting so many emails about it. She uh, she got a

auto reply. Right. They set up an auto reply that would basically scan your email to look for keywords and you could determine that you were complaining about her voice. This is what you got. Yeah, it said you've written in to voice your dislike of one of our female reporters voices. You're not alone. We have a filter setup that automatically since these types of emails into a folder labeled zero priority. We'll review this folder and consider the

complaints within. Well. Never Amazingly, we don't even have a folder for complaints about the mail voices on our show. But because we've never gotten one, isn't that strange? We think so? Anyway, I hope you can continue to enjoy your free podcast somehow. I love that one. Uh. And if you can't, there are plenty of shows that don't feature women's voices at all. Boom, I know that's one of the great all time auto applies. Yeah, that's pretty great, guys, So,

Roman and Katie, good for you. I love it. Yeah, but you talked earlier about some of our colleagues also have gone to training and linguists to reduce their vocal fry. And uh, which one was it? Yeah, Jessica Gross who does a slate podcast or did I'm not sure if she's still doing it called double x cab Fest. She actually went to a voice coach after receiving complaints. And uh, people like Penny Eckert, who is a linguist are saying, no, don't do that, like you're an agent of change, is

what you are, right, And that's um. The weird thing is is that would place if if we are watching, um, the evolution of Western speech, especially here in the United States right now, right and men are starting to vocal fry more and more. Men are starting to use up speak more and more, which suggests that these things are going to become increasingly widespread as the years go by.

Then the women who are doing it now are in a like a really terrible position because they grew up talking like this and now they're being forced to change and and emulate. They'll they'll say the predominant white male version of talking while the men are adopting it more and more, and then eventually down the road, the women will be able to take it on again once enough men do. And that nuts, But that's probably where things

are going. But in the meantime, people like Jessica Gross have to go to speech therapists to learn to talk right as far as her listeners go. And she was really worried that her career was being affected by this. And yeah, like you said, Penny Eckert, the linguists who who's UM quoted beneath her in this NPR article is saying like, yeah, this is ridiculous. You can't tell people how to talk, Like, I can't imagine a better way to just off handedly and casually trip somebody up and

make them totally self conscious. Then saying, by the way your voice annoys everybody, do something about it. Yeah, I can't imagine freaget that gross also points out the MPR article is great. They did an interview with a few a few women UM linguists and podcasters, and she points out about it's not just with the voice, it's UM with clothes a wear, and she used Silicon Valley as

an example. Mark Zuckerberg wears a T shirt and a hoodie to work every day, and all of a sudden, women who work in Silicon Valley, if you dress up and try and look nice, it's it goes against you. Yeah, you must be a dragon lady. Yeah, Like, what's wrong with you? Why you? What's are you not smart? While you're trying to you're trying to distract me with your good looks and you're nice skirt? Right? Where are something dumpy?

So now, of course the culture there is you go to work in Silicon Valley with your stupid hoodie and T shirt on to fit in. So I also saw another example. There was a New York Magazine UM article from I'm not entirely certain win, but it was called UM, can we just like get over the way women talk? By Ann Friedman? It was from July, and she uh

interviews a I think a feminist professor. Yeah, who's basically saying, like, women are damned one way or another, right, Like, if they talk like men, they come off as overly aggressive and assertive. If they talk like women, they come off as dumb and unable to h to stand behind what they're saying. You have any conviction about what they're saying,

It's like, which one do you want? Well, in that case, it's like, well, if you're the agent of change, I just go with that one, the one that's changing, the

one that that that you feel comfortable talking. Agreed. I read a cool article from The Guardian too that UM that showed that at Oxford University, young women get five ten percent fewer first class degrees in English, even though the exams are graded blindly, and professors there say it's because he observes female students and women saying like letting the men speak first and second and third before they even jump in, So they're not even getting a chance

to like shine because they're just so used to deferring to the jens in the group. And I think that that's probably something it's not necessarily just gender based, but um, I think that that's just a lack of confidence. That's displaying a lack of confidence, and I think it comes from just being treated that way your whole life. Agreed. Uh, here's another one from Amy Giddon, is director of Corporate

Leadership at Bernard's College Athenis Center for Leadership Studies. That's a long one and she said, the deal though, is there's a It's not that these women aren't confident. There's a disconnect going on because she interviewed these ladies and they are self advocates, and they feel like they're uh confident in their abilities and their smarts and ability to get things done, but they can't speak well about those things according to men in the room. So it's it's

not a lack of confidence. They have the confidence, it's just I think her point was that men pay attention to what men say and how women say things not necessarily what they're saying, which is just stupid yea and not fair. Plus also I think, um, if you like, if you are around somebody that you don't like, you're probably going to focus more on their perceived flaws. And if it's something like vocal fry or something like uh up speak, you're going to you're gonna you're gonna zero

win on that basically. Yeah, So I wonder like how much of it is just misogyny too? Oh man? And this one, this is a great quote. Uh, this is stuff is just one more way of telling powerful women to shut up. That kind of nails it on the head. Like I read that quote and that that crystallized it for me. It's like you said, it's disguised Uh not so like heavily disguised sexism. I think it's repulsive. It is. See,

are you got anything else? I got nothing else except just to you know, be yourself, be an agent of change. Don't listen to Bob Garfield, you know what. I hope this gets to him, Uh if you, oh man, it really might more with Bob Garfield, if you that'll bear a second. This year, who was the other. Oh, the Australia in jerk. Yeah. If you want to learn more about vocal fry, you can step out on the street and prick up your ears. You can also go to how stuff works dot com and type those words in

the search bar. And since I said perk, it's time for a listener mail, I'm gonna call this cult deprogramming um guys who grew up in a cultish environment. It wasn't like Jim Jones Crew. However, the group made a clear distinction between us and them, and getting out was difficult. I was only able to get free a couple of years ago, at the age of twenty four, and because of most of my current friends are still involved, I have ended the courage to tell them I'm still not

out yet. I attended an independent Fundamental Baptist Church. Baptist churches in general aren't cults. In fact, I still attended Baptist Church, but the I F B Churches are a thing into themselves. They stand opposed to modern music, alcohol, and all Bible translations except the King James version. Uh. Some take it further and add movie theaters, pants on women, beards on men, swimming, and mixed coum any and anything

else you can imagine to the list of the foreboding. Uh. These ideas problematic because there are not why I consider my previous environment to meet cultish. Rather, it was an attitude with which they viewed dissent. Modern Bible versions are not simply inferior than King James. They are part of the conspiracy to introduce error into God's word and poison believers faith. Modern music, even contemporary worship music, channels demons and feeds the flesh. It even kills plants. He didn't

follow up on that. Asking why we should believe these things is welcome since it gives the leaders an opportunity to allow I'm sorry, I all for canned answers that we can regurgitate two liberal contemporary crowd end quote. So basically, you're not questioning the interpretation, you're questioning God himself. So uh, he says. Now, I am happily a member of a more contemporary Baptist church that, while still fairly conservative it's

beliefs and practices, is much more open minded. Keep up the awesome more that is from Anonymous, because I will hunt him down. Thanks Anonymous, appreciate that. Yeah, he was like, oh, totally read it. He or she that is, yeah, did you give it away? Take my name off of it? He or she said that yes they did. If you want to supplement an episode that we have recorded, you can get in touch with us by tweeting to us at S why SK Podcast. You can join us on

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