On changing voice patterns

[Anastasius]

I do seem to have a sensitive ear to voices especially the female voice. I can listen all day to Georgia Mann or Hannah French and a few others on R3 but the others leave me cold and rushing for the OFF button. I rarely watch American films for similar reasons. I can listen to Linda Fiorentino all day as well but the majority of American female voices sound, to me, like a gerbil being castrated with a rusty razor blade.

But what's with the speech patterns of our young these days ? For better or worse, we enjoy watching First Dates but now have the subtitles switched on as most of the youngsters are utterly unintelligible. We're not deaf. Just that the speed at which they now speak renders comprehension impossible. Words tumble into one another. Rarely does one hear a consonant. And it's not just the girls but also the boys. Whatever..it is what it is (sadly).

Now I know that times change etc etc but where has this sudden rush to get words out so fast come from? Is it a spinoff from FOMO ?

And why are most of them appearing on these and other similar programmes so utterly lacking in Emotional Intelligence ? Is it a pre-requisite for appearing ?

[ardcarp]

I feel a certain sympathy, Anastasius, though you are clearly more switched on than I am, 'cos I had to look up FOMO !
I'm sure all generations have something to say about the speech of the preceding ones in relation to diction*. I can remember when Grange Hill had a 'Londonising' effect on kids everywhere, particularly in relation to the glottal-stop 't'. Even now, adults trying to be cool use it, and I was amused the other day to hear someone on radio (who shall be nameless) use the word 'deteriorating' but only remember to drop the second 't'. Hilarious.

I think the BBC has deliberately chosen some non-RP voices in its continuity team, even on Radio 3. As you mention female voices, there is one on R3 (who shall also remain nameless) which I can't bear as it sounds dippy, ignorant and...well I'd better stop.

As someone who has brought up two of our grandchildren 'in loco', maybe I'm used to modern adolescent speak, though I must say either of them would do a better job than the aforementioned. However, someone I will name (because he can stand up for himself) is Tom Service. Educated, informed, grammatical, intelligent, but OMG how he does gabble, especially when excited. I have developed a bit of an aversion to programmes such as The Listening Service...and in fact refer to it as The Talking Service....and I inwardly groan when he turns up as the compere of a concert. A shame, because I know he has many fine qualities. Just hope he never takes over Record Review.

*The 's' sound has tended toward the 'sh' in young-speak, e.g. stressed becomes shtressed.

[MrGongGong]

And why are most of them appearing on these and other similar programmes so utterly lacking in Emotional Intelligence ? Is it a pre-requisite for appearing ?

I don't watch much TV at all
but it IS important (IMV) to realise that it is all theatre
people play characters and follow a script EVEN if the script isn't written on paper and their characters are self-generated

[greenilex]

This makes me sound ancient, but I am convinced addiction to social media causes a perpetual internal gabble which makes people’s words fall over themselves in a desperate attempt to claim the listener’s vanishing attention...

[Anastasius]

This makes me sound ancient, but I am convinced addiction to social media causes a perpetual internal gabble which makes people’s words fall over themselves in a desperate attempt to claim the listener’s vanishing attention...

No, I don't think that makes you sound ancient. Wise, yes. The gabble of social media is the conclusion that we have come to. Hence FOMO.

[eighthobstruction]

....this maybe contraversial but....I find four fifths of what Jenny Murray says unintelligible....fine with the other WHour presenters.

....had occasion to listen to R1 for my grandson....dinnerhour current affairs section....a very valleys Welsh man and a constrained squeeky young woman both making perfect sense....[of course a button was clicked in my head which made me consider what they said somewhat less than if Neil Sleet had announced it....basically info on Covid 19)....it wasn't what they said but the manner in which they said it - but of course i am not their usual audience.

....Find it hard to decypher what people on R4 1830 comedy are saying....notably News Quiz....they twist sentences,insert pauses and intone to make the payoff funnier....but i often cannot hear the punchline - so pleased are they in delivering their speedy wit it is delivered into their jumpers....

[eighthobstruction]

This makes me sound ancient, but I am convinced addiction to social media causes a perpetual internal gabble which makes people’s words fall over themselves in a desperate attempt to claim the listener’s vanishing attention...

....very much so....fomo

....i apparently rejoice in jomo

[kernelbogey]

...the majority of American female voices sound, to me, like a gerbil being castrated with a rusty razor blade.

Curious how often you may have heard the sound you reference here....

It is not merely the very young who speak indistinctly. I am not a Today fan but I have occasionally heard their guests, invited presumably as some kind of authority on a subject, speak at that rapid pace that has become common: and with the elision of whole syllables that has also become common when uttering words of more than two syllables. Terrist for terrorist is a common one, but others can frequently be heard. (I suspect the pressure for brevity in text-speak, and tweeting, may lie behind this, to some extent.)

[kernelbogey]

I find American voices as varied in both sound and degree of pleasantness, or the reverse, as British ones. There is, however, a habit of speech which has developed among particularly American women, and known sometimes as 'gravel voice' (aka glottal fry). At the end of a sentence, the voice drops in pitch to a chest voice, with a gravelly tone. Sadly, I heard an otherwise British-sounding woman on the World Service this morning, reporting from the US (where I assume she lives and works) which had this characteristic. I find it rather disfiguring of the voice.

[jayne lee wilson]

What a dismaying thread....poor old forum, locked into regretful nostalgia....

Can't you all learn to celebrate difference, variety, the global multiculture of Music and The Voice.....?

This came up yesterday and I commented that, with a specific young female voice on Radio 3, it did not sound remotely rushed or gabbled to me (63, female)....is it all about age or gender-based physical differences in how we actually hear these voices....? Perhaps it is...but you can't turn back the clock of cultural time, and we do need more young, female voices involved in every aspect of culture and politics... if they are inspired by the teenage female superheroes in Sci-Fi (Marvel Films etc), well so much the better! I find them inspiring myself! Go Greta!

First Dates.... this is in fact an examination of Emotional Literacy, it sets before us the varying levels of such in the (very brave) people who appear on it. It is (unscripted) theatre as GG says, but more interestingly revealing than most.....of gender & age role & stereotype, how to attempt a "relationship" without falling into the traps of supposed normality....
....you watch as someone reveals (often unconsciously) how their history and upbringing has limited how they can approach and think through a given relationship, or attempt at such....

I don't find the younger voices too rushed or gabbled - but as I said above, this could be age- gender-, physiologically-based and influenced.... I'm genuinely fascinated about that.....

[eighthobstruction]

What a dismaying thread....poor old forum, locked into regretful nostalgia....

Can't you all learn to celebrate difference, variety, the global multiculture of Music and The Voice.....?

This came up yesterday and I commented that, with a specific young female voice on Radio 3, it did not sound remotely rushed or gabbled to me (63, female)....is it all about age or gender-based physical differences in how we actually hear these voices....? Perhaps it is...but you can't turn back the clock of cultural time, and we do need more young, female voices involved in every aspect of culture and politics... if they are inspired by the teenage female superheroes in Sci-Fi (Marvel Films etc), well so much the better! I find them inspiring myself! Go Greta!

First Dates.... this is in fact an examination of Emotional Literacy, it sets before us the varying levels of such in the (very brave) people who appear on it. It is (unscripted) theatre as GG says, but more interestingly revealing than most.....of gender & age role & stereotype, how to attempt a "relationship" without falling into the traps of supposed normality....
....you watch as someone reveals (often unconsciously) how their history and upbringing has limited how they can approach and think through a given relationship, or attempt at such....

I don't find the younger voices too rushed or gabbled - but as I said above, this could be age- gender-, physiologically-based and influenced.... I'm genuinely fascinated about that.....

....i think our fascination is what the threads about....i think firstly it is about the talking rather than the content [the content of young speak to abrev', would besomething quite different] I guess things like having been in the WW2, down a mine, up a chimney, on a noisey Ford production line , working in a windy field etc etc you get my drift? Me being a jazz crazed Kerouac driven hippy but essentially an ordinary w/c Bristol boy from a Secondary Modern rough school certainly made my approach to language rather idiosyncratic....

Ed: next you will be telling me you all watch Naked Attraction....

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Maybe this thread has come about because the BBC likes nearly every programme to be presenter-led, rather than ensuring content is of the highest standard.

[MrGongGong]

Maybe this thread has come about because the BBC likes nearly every programme to be presenter-led, rather than ensuring content is of the highest standard.

https://www.youtube.com/user/SirBuftonTufton

[jayne lee wilson]

....i think our fascination is what the threads about....i think firstly it is about the talking rather than the content [the content of young speak to abrev', would besomething quite different] I guess things like having been in the WW2, down a mine, up a chimney, on a noisey Ford production line , working in a windy field etc etc you get my drift? Me being a jazz crazed Kerouac driven hippy but essentially an ordinary w/c Bristol boy from a Secondary Modern rough school certainly made my approach to language rather idiosyncratic....

Ed: next you will be telling me you all watch Naked Attraction....

God, if you only knew my personal history....

...luxury bloody luxury etc....

[eighthobstruction]

God, if you only knew my personal history....

...luxury bloody luxury etc....

....luckily my approach never raised much £$£$....but did bag me a Dr for a wife....

Ed: though thinking about it maybe she bagged me....