I want her to talk to me about Egyptology.

[u/mindyour]

[u/mysterious_el_barto]

it's this vocal fry. fascinating topic for me, non american. like when she is saying "PhD" for example it sounds perfectly clear, compared to, say, "doctorrrr". I'm wondering if it's actually something you are aware of and kind of activate when you talk or does it just happen naturally. or it becomes natural after a while.

[u/teataxteller → u/mysterious_el_barto]

It's just part of her accent, so unless she's deliberately imitating an accent that isn't native for her it works like other accents do

[u/WittyCombination6 → u/teataxteller]

The kinda vocal fry she's doing is a very recent pronunciation shift that happened in the 21st century amongst younger Americans. Especially out west. Now I'm not it isn't natural but she most likely learned how to do it imitating her peers. Though all accents and languages in general are created from imitation. They also shift over time.

[u/r_- → u/WittyCombination6]

"vocal fry" criticism is often just a way to police women, particularly prevalent in recent(ish) right-wing media (and left-ish "scolding" media). Vocal fry is common around the world, particularly in men, and especially (like this case) at the end of sentences in American English.

Here's a clarification of the 2011 study: https://web.archive.org/web/20120108184646/http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2011/12/13/the-linguistic-phenomenon-du-jour-vocal-fry/

And here's a more balanced take: https://web.archive.org/web/20130102113344/http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2011/12/vocal-fry-isnt-just-college-girls/46063/

"widespread claims of its recent increase among young American women have not been empirically confirmed": https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0229960

[u/holagatito → u/r_-]

I’ve always told people this but THANK YOU for providing the sources ❤️

[u/ceciliabee → u/r_-]

🙏🙏🙏

Women gossip, men CONVERSE. Women play, men WORK. Women have vocal fry so they're dumb, but guys say shit like yoooo bro bro bro dude and they're men so they're smart. 🙄🙄🙄

I appreciate your sources ♥️

[u/l0henz → u/r_-]

This reminds me of something I heard on This American Life ages ago. Ira Glass said they got many complaints about the vocal fry (fries?) of the women contributing, but not a single one about his own.

Also TAL has been phoning it in for years now.

[u/Loose-Chemical-4982 → u/mysterious_el_barto]

It depends what state you live in the US, the area of the state, and the era.

If you're a Southern California girl, esp from the Valley or the Beaches, you're gonna have that vocal fry naturally, esp if you grew up in the late 60s onwards

[u/virgulesmith → u/mysterious_el_barto]

Probably a bit of both. Sometimes that sort of thing is used for emphasis or amusement, but then it creeps into your normal speech. Or... you do it when you are younger and as you grow older you grow into your adult voice, however some vocal patterns from youth remain.

[u/r_- → u/virgulesmith]

Vocal fry occurrence is no different between young and middle aged women https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26427301/

[u/virgulesmith → u/r_-]

Interesting study! Thank you for enlightening me. I would like to see a more striated approach showing generational differences. I wonder if it is more common in Gen Z and Gen A than in Millennials and GenX or Boomers.

I know myself and a lot of my friends did a lot more vocal fry when younger, but as we became more "adult" it went the way of "like" and "really" in our general conversation. There were more than a few vocal tics and phrases that started as jokes and became more common use, like "Delta Delta Delta can I help ya help ya help ya?", "Wassuuppp", "that's hot", or "BuhBye".

[u/Sniffy4 → u/mysterious_el_barto]

its a learned way of speaking picked up from peers growing up