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Vocal Fry and Other Speech Trends · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should Know from House Stuff Works
0:05
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:13
Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and we have a very
0:17
Speaker 1: special treat for everyone out there for your ears. Casey
0:21
Speaker 1: are video video producer extraordinaire is standing in as our
0:25
Speaker 1: podcast producer, so he basically is in charge of us
0:29
Speaker 1: in every way, shape and form. Right now, that's right.
0:35
Speaker 1: I I realized Chuck that, um, you're just doing vocal fry.
0:39
Speaker 1: I have no ear for it. Yeah, you know, before
0:43
Speaker 1: Casey we asked him to choose which one to do first,
0:45
Speaker 1: any with vocal fry, and I didn't even notice. Yeah,
0:49
Speaker 1: you got the fry filter. Do you think that means
0:52
Speaker 1: that I do it? Because I was trying to think.
0:55
Speaker 1: I know that I up speak sometimes they're up talk,
0:59
Speaker 1: but it's fairly infrequent. I think, yeah, and um, but
1:02
Speaker 1: I don't know if I like vocal fire or not.
1:05
Speaker 1: I have no idea whatsoever. I don't know. Did I
1:08
Speaker 1: just do it? Just now? I did? Didn't I? I
1:11
Speaker 1: don't know. We'll have to listen to the playback. I
1:13
Speaker 1: guess I just did it. Listen to the playback that
1:17
Speaker 1: sounds like normal speaking to me. I know, man, huh,
1:21
Speaker 1: because well, we'll get into this, but it's uh. A
1:24
Speaker 1: lot of people contend that there's a lot of sexism
1:26
Speaker 1: going on with it because I just said it, and
1:29
Speaker 1: people probably won't write in and say anything about it.
1:31
Speaker 1: But or a woman, people would probably write in and
1:34
Speaker 1: say the way you talk is so annoying. And you
1:38
Speaker 1: know what, I think like a lot of people are
1:40
Speaker 1: trying to dance around this or prove that it's sexist.
1:42
Speaker 1: It's like, no, on its face, this is a sexist
1:47
Speaker 1: argument that's going on right now. Yeah, I mean, just
1:50
Speaker 1: look around. We had Tracy and Hollyan recently and they
1:53
Speaker 1: talked about emails that they get about their voices being shrill.
1:57
Speaker 1: And I remember other podcast esters here we had in
2:00
Speaker 1: the past. Other women who had podcasts would get just
2:04
Speaker 1: lots of email detailing the quality of their voice, and
2:10
Speaker 1: we don't really get those much occasionally. I guess. No,
2:13
Speaker 1: you want to have some fun, go on to iTunes
2:15
Speaker 1: and find a podcast that is hosted by women and
2:18
Speaker 1: read the reviews, and then go read the reviews for
2:21
Speaker 1: a podcast that's hosted by men. It's yeah, it is.
2:25
Speaker 1: And when somebody like Bob Garfield from MPR calls the
2:29
Speaker 1: calls vocal fry repulsive. That's a really good point for
2:33
Speaker 1: everyone else to stand back and be like, what's this
2:36
Speaker 1: guy's real problem, because repulsive is not a correct word
2:40
Speaker 1: to use to describe vocal fry. It's wrong. It's it's wrong.
2:45
Speaker 1: It's like it's like he's pointing at something else, but
2:48
Speaker 1: he thinks he's pointing at the vocal fry. Who knows
2:51
Speaker 1: what's going on, but yes, on its face, it's a
2:53
Speaker 1: misogynistic argument. That's that's being carried out, putting out there
2:57
Speaker 1: right now. I don't plan on dancing around it at all.
2:59
Speaker 1: We're not dancing. Uh. And it is all very ironic
3:04
Speaker 1: considering that vocal fry can be traced back to British
3:08
Speaker 1: men in the nineteen sixties. Yeah, I mean think about
3:12
Speaker 1: like Sean Connery. Okay, I'm thinking about him. Okay, that
3:17
Speaker 1: was it had nothing to do with vocal I just
3:19
Speaker 1: wanted to see if I get you to think about
3:20
Speaker 1: Sean Conner. Well, apparently they traced it back to sixty
3:24
Speaker 1: four when British men the mid sixties used it to
3:26
Speaker 1: denote superior social standing. And I think I'm trying to
3:30
Speaker 1: imagine my head and I think it's like, you know,
3:33
Speaker 1: you shall not question me like that kind of thing. Yeah,
3:38
Speaker 1: like its masculinity and uh an into a statement by
3:43
Speaker 1: lowering your voice fry. It sounded like Welliam Randolph Hurst
3:47
Speaker 1: by the way, a lot like that. But but it
3:51
Speaker 1: makes sense also it basically when you hear vocal fry,
3:56
Speaker 1: it is and will tell you exactly what it is
3:58
Speaker 1: in a second, but you know what it is. Um,
4:01
Speaker 1: when you hear vocal fry, it denotes that you can't
4:06
Speaker 1: be bothered, to be enthusiastic about it, or in the
4:11
Speaker 1: case of British, another way to put it is it's
4:13
Speaker 1: very dry way, yeah, kind of you know. Um and
4:17
Speaker 1: they they say they linguists. Vocal fry and its current
4:23
Speaker 1: use among younger girls or millennials in general, is a
4:29
Speaker 1: way to indicate like I'm over it, or I am
4:33
Speaker 1: not to be bothered with this any longer, or in
4:35
Speaker 1: some cases it makes them seem authoritative. We'll get more
4:39
Speaker 1: into that. So in other words, it doesn't mean they're
4:41
Speaker 1: dumb and don't know how to talk correctly. They're actually
4:43
Speaker 1: trying to accomplish something, but speaking in a certain way
4:47
Speaker 1: like every other human on earth exactly. I just did
4:49
Speaker 1: it again. This is really gonna make me look at myself,
4:52
Speaker 1: I think, I think, I I think, well, actually, let's
4:56
Speaker 1: talk about up speak. This is gonna be all this
4:59
Speaker 1: is vocal fry, it's up speak. It's using the word
5:02
Speaker 1: like all these vocal mannerisms and ticks maybe that people
5:06
Speaker 1: have these days because language changes and evolves. We don't
5:10
Speaker 1: talk like we did sixty years ago. No, like, for example,
5:14
Speaker 1: the mid Atlantic accent is gone. What was that? That
5:17
Speaker 1: was the radio announcer. Yeah, that was kind of No,
5:23
Speaker 1: not really, I think that was the antithesis of it.
5:25
Speaker 1: It was more like, um, all right, uh, George Plimpton,
5:30
Speaker 1: Frasier Crane, Mr Burns. It's like it's like the difference
5:36
Speaker 1: is split between British and you know, um, Eastern American.
5:40
Speaker 1: I thought you were just naming old white dudes kind of.
5:43
Speaker 1: But I mean, it was the language of the aristocracy
5:46
Speaker 1: in the first half of the twentieth century, right, it
5:48
Speaker 1: is gone now. And they think that it was basically
5:52
Speaker 1: run out by guys like Jimmy Cagney and yeah and um,
5:58
Speaker 1: Marlon Brando, and that the way that they talked was
6:01
Speaker 1: not like that, and they made their style of talking,
6:04
Speaker 1: which is how we talk now. We're like super Brando
6:07
Speaker 1: now right, Uh is a result of mid Atlantic going
6:11
Speaker 1: away being replaced by this Well, well, it's not really
6:15
Speaker 1: my theory. I'm sure there are a lot of people
6:16
Speaker 1: that agree. I think that language does evolve, and that
6:19
Speaker 1: the people that the Garfields of the world, the Bob Garfields,
6:23
Speaker 1: not the cat Garfields. It's like, don't dray Garfield. And uh.
6:28
Speaker 1: The ones who rail against it so much, I think
6:30
Speaker 1: are like see and say like a lot too. But
6:33
Speaker 1: people it we also say, um, I get called out
6:36
Speaker 1: for saying um, yeah, I get it. It's fine. I
6:39
Speaker 1: think though, you go ahead. And so I think those
6:42
Speaker 1: people are just they're feeling like they're not relevant any longer,
6:45
Speaker 1: and no one wants to be a dinosaur. And so
6:48
Speaker 1: I don't understand the language these young women are speaking,
6:51
Speaker 1: which is bs because a lot of younger people, men
6:54
Speaker 1: and women speak that way. It's just called the way
6:57
Speaker 1: the younger generation speaks. And it's not like you, old man, right,
7:02
Speaker 1: so just go off to pasture, which is not the case.
7:06
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody's trying to make this the older
7:09
Speaker 1: middle aged white man feel irrelevant. We haven't. We're on
7:15
Speaker 1: our way there anyway, and I feel irrelevant. But it
7:17
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with up speak or vocal fry.
7:20
Speaker 1: It's the music these kids are listening to these days.
7:22
Speaker 1: But I think I think you have nailed it on
7:24
Speaker 1: the head though, like like, it is a form of
7:26
Speaker 1: contempt for being replaced by something new, something that's different.
7:31
Speaker 1: And as we'll see, especially when it comes to linguistics, UM,
7:35
Speaker 1: younger girls tend to be at the bleeding edge of
7:38
Speaker 1: linguistic changes. So UM the perhaps and this is all
7:43
Speaker 1: we want to just make sure you guys understand that
7:45
Speaker 1: we understand this total pop psychology on our part. But
7:49
Speaker 1: it's also it's intuitive, it makes a lot of sense.
7:52
Speaker 1: But the idea that UM, older middle aged white men
7:57
Speaker 1: who are threatened by vocal fry or find it repulsive
7:59
Speaker 1: or pugnant or whatever, UM, they are projecting their their
8:04
Speaker 1: sense of being replaced, of being irrelevant, being put out
8:08
Speaker 1: to pasture. I agree wholeheartedly. I think that's exactly what.
8:10
Speaker 1: There's not enough to control the free world for since
8:14
Speaker 1: the beginning of time, right which the fact that they
8:17
Speaker 1: do is still UM says that's the reason why we're
8:21
Speaker 1: even having this conversation. That's the reason why some women
8:24
Speaker 1: find the need to go to speech therapists to get
8:27
Speaker 1: rid of their vocal fry, which is something that some
8:30
Speaker 1: even podcasters have done. All right, so let's talk up
8:33
Speaker 1: talk real quick, up talk or valley girls speak as
8:36
Speaker 1: when you in a sentence, UM as if you're asking
8:39
Speaker 1: a question like that, and that has been a thing
8:43
Speaker 1: for a long time. Um, there was a first of all. Two,
8:47
Speaker 1: we should point out that most of the studies we're
8:50
Speaker 1: gonna put in here, terrible social psychology studies funk, almost
8:54
Speaker 1: all of them, well because they just they never do
8:56
Speaker 1: it right. You could do some decent studies on this,
8:58
Speaker 1: I think, but for instance, this one uh at California,
9:03
Speaker 1: San Diego, they did a close acoustical analysis of twenty
9:07
Speaker 1: three Southern Californians perfect sample size. Yeah, two didn't show
9:12
Speaker 1: up from very diverse backgrounds. Apparently, I don't know how
9:15
Speaker 1: diverse you can get among twenty three people. But they said,
9:19
Speaker 1: here you have two tasks. UM, give directions with a
9:22
Speaker 1: map and then describe a sitcom clip. And they found
9:26
Speaker 1: that UM, women did use up talk twice as often
9:29
Speaker 1: as men. But UM in making declarative statements like my
9:34
Speaker 1: appointment is at nine o'clock. Men and women, um use
9:37
Speaker 1: rises the same, So like basically men did the same
9:40
Speaker 1: thing with that kind of statement. And then the other
9:43
Speaker 1: one that makes sense to me is when giving directions.
9:46
Speaker 1: A lot of people use up talk because it's you're
9:49
Speaker 1: sort of asking a question, like, you know, go up
9:53
Speaker 1: to the McDonald's a memorial drive. It's basically saying, do
9:56
Speaker 1: you understand what I'm saying? Are you following me? Yeah?
9:59
Speaker 1: It's almost it's funny. I wondered this chuck about up
10:02
Speaker 1: talking in particular. Um is it? Is it like a
10:09
Speaker 1: way of kind of in inadvertently mocking your listener, Like
10:13
Speaker 1: men trail off very frequently when women start talking. So
10:17
Speaker 1: if women evolved to basically keep men engaged at the
10:21
Speaker 1: end of each sentence, like yeah, are you still with me?
10:24
Speaker 1: Do I have to keep leaving you along by the
10:26
Speaker 1: hand in this conversation where you know, if that's where
10:30
Speaker 1: it originally came from. Place holding or floor holding is
10:33
Speaker 1: another reason they found that women use up talk because
10:36
Speaker 1: they want to give um the listener the idea that
10:39
Speaker 1: they're not done talking yet, don't interrupt me, And it
10:43
Speaker 1: might make sense maybe women are interrupted more than men. Oh,
10:45
Speaker 1: I would say that's a distinct possibility. Um, there's been
10:49
Speaker 1: a bit of a linguistic trace to this whole thing,
10:53
Speaker 1: to up speak, in particular vocal fry. I couldn't find,
10:57
Speaker 1: you know where they think the origin of it was,
10:59
Speaker 1: But with ups there was a UM I believe. She
11:02
Speaker 1: was a linguist named Cynthia Macklemore back in University of
11:06
Speaker 1: Texas in Austin UM. She studied a sorority house on
11:11
Speaker 1: campus there and was the first person to detect up speak,
11:15
Speaker 1: which became known as or which was already I guess
11:18
Speaker 1: known as as Valley girl. But she she didn't coin
11:21
Speaker 1: the term up speak, but she was the first to
11:23
Speaker 1: think to really study it. UM. And then a guy
11:26
Speaker 1: named James Gorman coined the term up speak in like
11:31
Speaker 1: two years later. But maclemore traced in this UM sorority
11:36
Speaker 1: house the origin of the up speak to the very
11:40
Speaker 1: popular girls from l A. Although you canna say to
11:43
Speaker 1: one sorority sister, no, I'm I'm wondering though, if there
11:46
Speaker 1: is this, like a patient zero of this in the
11:48
Speaker 1: United States. UM, back in l A, there's the Valley
11:51
Speaker 1: girl talk that is clearly related to up speak, right,
11:54
Speaker 1: and that movie was huge, right, so back in the sixties,
11:58
Speaker 1: they've traced it back to Australia or New Zealand. So
12:03
Speaker 1: it is possible, this is my own pet theory here
12:06
Speaker 1: that some very popular girl moved from Australia or New
12:10
Speaker 1: Zealand to Los Angeles, wowed her friends. We started emulating
12:15
Speaker 1: the way she talked, which is up speak, and it's
12:18
Speaker 1: spread from there. You know. Now they think about the
12:21
Speaker 1: Australian accent. It is sort of up speaking, isn't it. Yeah,
12:25
Speaker 1: a little bit. Yeah, they're like because there's like basically
12:28
Speaker 1: like you're getting like hitting the ribs with their elbow
12:31
Speaker 1: just from the way they're talking, Like, yeah, you're following along. Yeah, yeah,
12:36
Speaker 1: it's very interesting. So let's let's take a break, man,
12:39
Speaker 1: take a break man. Yeah, okay, alright, we're back. This
13:04
Speaker 1: stuff fascinates me. By the way, I could I could
13:06
Speaker 1: be a linguist. I could study linguistics and be a
13:11
Speaker 1: linguistics researcher and specialist linguists I like linguistic or linguistic.
13:19
Speaker 1: Yeah sure, if you're a year old girl, that would
13:23
Speaker 1: be a widespread word twenty years from now, right, and
13:26
Speaker 1: people like Bob Garfield would say, we remember when we
13:28
Speaker 1: called it all right, So specifically, let's just talk about
13:34
Speaker 1: the what vocal for I actually is in the throat.
13:37
Speaker 1: Um glottalization is probably the more scientific term, and what
13:42
Speaker 1: it is. It's a it's a vibration when your voice
13:44
Speaker 1: falls and your vocal cords flutter very slowly, um, because
13:49
Speaker 1: they can't make the A tone any longer at that register. Right,
13:53
Speaker 1: It's called chaotic flapping, right, chaotic glottal flapping. I like it, yeah,
13:59
Speaker 1: And it sounds like it would hurt, but it actually doesn't,
14:02
Speaker 1: except although I think most um, your nose and throat
14:05
Speaker 1: guys will tell you that, um, if you did this
14:08
Speaker 1: in a sustained manner yelling for a while, yeah, you
14:12
Speaker 1: could damage your vocal yell a vocal Friday, I guess
14:17
Speaker 1: he almost tried. I didn't. I was like, I'm not
14:19
Speaker 1: doing that, yeah, because I associate it with falling off
14:22
Speaker 1: of a sentence and not being right, you know, which
14:25
Speaker 1: is where it's usually placed these days. But this the
14:29
Speaker 1: author of this article on Husta, first Voice and current
14:32
Speaker 1: there's become the grabster of late Oh yeah, yeah, the
14:36
Speaker 1: modern times grabster. Oh boy, Well, no, grabs are still
14:41
Speaker 1: a legend. Yeah, I'm just saying this person who stepped
14:44
Speaker 1: in to fill in the void a little bit. Well,
14:46
Speaker 1: let me say too quickly that I'm doing nothing but
14:50
Speaker 1: listening to my voice right now, and I can't imagine
14:53
Speaker 1: what it's like to constantly be worried about that because
14:57
Speaker 1: usually we come in here and so safe haven. I
14:59
Speaker 1: don't think twice a about how I sound, they sound
15:01
Speaker 1: how I sound, But just like put yourself into the
15:03
Speaker 1: microscope like that, which is I think a lot of
15:06
Speaker 1: women in broadcasting probably like suffer from that. I just
15:10
Speaker 1: said like like five times, you know, but I don't
15:13
Speaker 1: care who cares. You're a man, You're white man ag
15:17
Speaker 1: eighteen forty nine. Yeah, still under forty nine. Yeah. Is
15:22
Speaker 1: that the cut off point? Then I'll become Bob Garfield?
15:27
Speaker 1: Oh man, Garfield's gonna hate this for this. Uh So
15:30
Speaker 1: Garfield is not the only one. There are plenty of
15:32
Speaker 1: women out there calling out younger women saying it's a
15:35
Speaker 1: disempowering act to speak like this. Um Naomi Wolf is
15:40
Speaker 1: one of them. She wrote an article that I read,
15:43
Speaker 1: and she said it projects uncertainty and weakness and low intelligence.
15:47
Speaker 1: Uh I doubt if she thinks it's the same one
15:50
Speaker 1: men do it, which is therein is it's as black
15:53
Speaker 1: and white as you can be, Like, what's the difference? Well, yeah,
15:59
Speaker 1: I think that it's ultimately the thing. I think that
16:01
Speaker 1: that kind of is a I think that argument misses
16:04
Speaker 1: the point and it pops up a lot people who
16:07
Speaker 1: defend girls and women's right to vocal fry or up
16:11
Speaker 1: speak or say like or just as another one, you're
16:14
Speaker 1: very guilty of that. It's like hedging your your actions,
16:18
Speaker 1: Like I was just saying, not like I'm saying like
16:22
Speaker 1: this is what I'm saying, it's I was just saying, like,
16:24
Speaker 1: I'm going to tone it down a little bit. Well,
16:26
Speaker 1: it's the same thing with women feeling like they need
16:28
Speaker 1: to apologize all the time. Sure, using sorry a lot,
16:31
Speaker 1: um with vocal fry in particular, though there's it doesn't
16:36
Speaker 1: it doesn't really denote anything like what the people who
16:40
Speaker 1: are saying it it does does like, it doesn't necessarily
16:43
Speaker 1: denote that you don't have any confidence in what you're saying. Um,
16:50
Speaker 1: I could see something like hedging things with just a
16:53
Speaker 1: lot or saying sorry a lot. Maybe so, But the
16:56
Speaker 1: idea that um, women have to be given advice on
16:58
Speaker 1: how to speak to pep up in this you know,
17:02
Speaker 1: male dominated world. Again, I feel like it misses the point.
17:06
Speaker 1: I think that the better argument is to basically say, hey, UM,
17:11
Speaker 1: what's the name of the mirror you're looking into their buddy?
17:14
Speaker 1: What's your problem? Like, really, honestly, what is your problem?
17:19
Speaker 1: Not why you know? Yes, let's get on the bandwagon
17:23
Speaker 1: and rail against girls and women who do this and
17:26
Speaker 1: totally ignore men that do. But what's the real problem?
17:29
Speaker 1: And I think ultimately the real problem is these men have,
17:32
Speaker 1: whether they realize it or not, UM identified girls as
17:38
Speaker 1: significant agents of change that are bringing along a different
17:43
Speaker 1: world than these men grew up and were accustomed to UM.
17:48
Speaker 1: And and they're right in a lot of ways. There's
17:51
Speaker 1: actually UM studies that point to women and especially young girls,
17:56
Speaker 1: as the agents have changed when it comes to grammar,
17:59
Speaker 1: vocabul larry UM and speech patterns in the Western world
18:03
Speaker 1: for hundreds of years. Now, UM, did you read did
18:06
Speaker 1: you read a little bit about that study? Which one?
18:09
Speaker 1: So there was one in UM, I believe two thousand nine.
18:14
Speaker 1: And get this, these two finished researchers poured over six
18:20
Speaker 1: thousand letters, six thousand letters and um. They were from
18:26
Speaker 1: fourteen seventeen to sixteen eighty one, and they found written letters.
18:30
Speaker 1: They found frond these letters in the Western world that um,
18:33
Speaker 1: women tended to adopt new world new words faster, discard
18:37
Speaker 1: old words faster, and um just change their grammar and
18:42
Speaker 1: uh speech patterns are writing patterns much quicker than men did.
18:46
Speaker 1: And then other studies have shown that men tend to
18:49
Speaker 1: pick up on this about ten to twenty years later.
18:52
Speaker 1: So I think, what's going on When you're saying, well,
18:54
Speaker 1: men do it too, It's like, yeah, men didn't do
18:57
Speaker 1: it at first, men are starting to do it now.
18:59
Speaker 1: So if you take all this as as fact and
19:02
Speaker 1: correct scientifically, then what we're seeing now is the widespread
19:07
Speaker 1: adoption of a change in speech pattern that began twenty
19:11
Speaker 1: years ago with younger women right in the valley and
19:14
Speaker 1: has spread to the rest of culture. Um and is
19:18
Speaker 1: being adopted. And this change to the rules of grammar,
19:22
Speaker 1: there are rules to how you talk and address people.
19:25
Speaker 1: That that's what's being railed against the change. But really, ultimately,
19:28
Speaker 1: again speaking from a pop psychology standpoint, it's the world
19:32
Speaker 1: is changing, and these guys feel threatened by it because
19:34
Speaker 1: they don't know what's going to come after this. Nothing,
19:38
Speaker 1: that's the answer. People getting getting all worked up about
19:42
Speaker 1: the way people talk is just it's folly. To me,
19:45
Speaker 1: it's nothing. It's language. It changes. Nothing bad is going
19:48
Speaker 1: to happen. They're gonna wake up tomorrow in the world's
19:50
Speaker 1: gonna be exactly the same, right, They're just not gonna
19:53
Speaker 1: like it the way some people talk. I think also
19:55
Speaker 1: those it's deeper than that that. It's like they do
19:58
Speaker 1: have something to fear. They do have like their nest
20:00
Speaker 1: egg to to be lost in there in the stock
20:03
Speaker 1: market when it drops automatically, or girls are going to
20:07
Speaker 1: take their money, yeah exactly, you know, or not being
20:09
Speaker 1: being able to be employable but still needing a job
20:13
Speaker 1: at age seventy. You know. Like, I think there is
20:15
Speaker 1: a lot to fear, and I think it's being projected
20:17
Speaker 1: onto girls who vocal fry. Agreed, Okay, I'm all over
20:22
Speaker 1: the place. Let's take a break. I need to regain
20:24
Speaker 1: my composure, all right, all right, chuckers. So you're kind
20:46
Speaker 1: of talking about, um, you know why people vocal fry, right,
20:52
Speaker 1: and um, there's some pretty good answers to it that
20:55
Speaker 1: have been studied. Um. In addition, to like up speak
20:58
Speaker 1: where you are it's a placeholder where you're saying, don't
21:02
Speaker 1: interrupt me, there's more to come, or are you following
21:05
Speaker 1: this because I'm really trying to keep you engaged here,
21:08
Speaker 1: you know, like when you hear someone, when you hear
21:12
Speaker 1: an interrogative at the end of a statement, you're immediately like, oh,
21:16
Speaker 1: I'm I'm expected to respond, so I better be paying attention.
21:20
Speaker 1: So this is almost like tricking people into paying attention.
21:23
Speaker 1: That's another way to do it. It sounds like a
21:25
Speaker 1: pretty good move to me. On the other side again, Uh,
21:29
Speaker 1: there's the idea that it says that women are unsure
21:32
Speaker 1: of their opinion or anybody who uses up speak unsure
21:36
Speaker 1: their opinion. Um, By by keeping it a question, it
21:40
Speaker 1: suggests that you can easily back off of it and
21:45
Speaker 1: to your statement that much exactly. And I actually saw something.
21:49
Speaker 1: It was a two thousand one article in The Guardian
21:51
Speaker 1: about up speak in particular, and um they were saying
21:56
Speaker 1: that some people believe that up speak became prevalent as
22:00
Speaker 1: a result of PC, like the political correctness movement, to
22:05
Speaker 1: where it gives you the chance to be like but
22:08
Speaker 1: I don't really agree with that, you know, depending on
22:11
Speaker 1: the micro expressions of the person exactly. Yeah. Um, and
22:16
Speaker 1: that one actually, that one kind of holds water in
22:18
Speaker 1: a sense because we've definitely entered a second phase of
22:23
Speaker 1: like the PC movement. It's definitely been a surgeon it
22:26
Speaker 1: about the same time as the surgeon up speaker with
22:30
Speaker 1: it becoming widespread. It's possibility. Again, no one has any
22:35
Speaker 1: idea at this point, but those are kind of the
22:37
Speaker 1: two sides for up speak with vocal fry, it is um.
22:40
Speaker 1: The critics of it say that it it suggests that
22:43
Speaker 1: you are you sounded unenthusiastic. And on the other side, Yeah,
22:48
Speaker 1: that's actually one of the tools that it it is
22:50
Speaker 1: that maybe they're unenthusiastic about what they're saying. But you
22:53
Speaker 1: also said that it's um. It's been found to be employed,
22:57
Speaker 1: especially by younger girls when they're trying to sound authoritative.
23:02
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what some linguists have said. Uh, here's
23:06
Speaker 1: another terrible study for you, and this one got a
23:08
Speaker 1: lot of press. I remember when it came out that
23:11
Speaker 1: you will have a harder time getting a job, um
23:15
Speaker 1: if you use vocal fry and up speak. And for
23:18
Speaker 1: this one, uh, they had two different recording recordings they
23:22
Speaker 1: played too, and four hundred women for a range of
23:25
Speaker 1: groups asked them to rate the speakers and who who
23:28
Speaker 1: you might hire, and no one wanted to hire the
23:31
Speaker 1: vocal fryers. And what they came out with later was, oh,
23:35
Speaker 1: by the way, we didn't just use regular people who
23:38
Speaker 1: happened to vocal fry. We got people to vocal fry
23:42
Speaker 1: on purpose, like to act it out and to do
23:45
Speaker 1: an accent, which is just throw the whole study out
23:48
Speaker 1: the window. Then we'll see in their in their defense,
23:51
Speaker 1: I'm sure this was all in the study, but the
23:54
Speaker 1: people in the media who reported on it didn't bother
23:56
Speaker 1: to read the study. They read the abstract, and then
23:58
Speaker 1: that's where all the headlines the tour through the news
24:02
Speaker 1: cycle came from. Right, So the idea that, um, these
24:05
Speaker 1: people who were who were trained as part of the
24:09
Speaker 1: study to speak in vocal fry, we're not native vocal
24:12
Speaker 1: fry speakers. The idea is that that they came off
24:15
Speaker 1: sounding like robotic and stilted in that it really has
24:18
Speaker 1: nothing to do with vocal fright. It's like you wouldn't
24:20
Speaker 1: hire somebody who's doing a bad mock British accent like
24:25
Speaker 1: me doing what. I don't know, like they hired what
24:29
Speaker 1: if they hired me to do a study on like
24:31
Speaker 1: what British people thought of their accents and they're like,
24:34
Speaker 1: let's get Chuck to do it, so do it? Well, No,
24:36
Speaker 1: of course not, but terrible mate. Kind of funny. Actually, Uh,
24:46
Speaker 1: a lot of our colleagues, I mean we're kind of
24:48
Speaker 1: getting on this late. A lot of our colleagues have
24:50
Speaker 1: already covered this. Um, I were glass. Um did a
24:53
Speaker 1: segment on vocal fry and he said that listeners always
24:56
Speaker 1: complained about young women reporting on our show. Um, they
25:00
Speaker 1: used to complain about like and up speak, but now
25:02
Speaker 1: it's vocal fry and he said, I am a vocal
25:06
Speaker 1: fryer self admitted, and no one ever writes me about that. Yeah, exactly.
25:12
Speaker 1: And then um our buddy Roman Mars the Great Invisible
25:18
Speaker 1: his producer Katie Mingle. At one point they were getting
25:22
Speaker 1: so many emails about it. She uh, she got a
25:28
Speaker 1: auto reply. Right. They set up an auto reply that
25:31
Speaker 1: would basically scan your email to look for keywords and
25:35
Speaker 1: you could determine that you were complaining about her voice.
25:38
Speaker 1: This is what you got. Yeah, it said you've written
25:41
Speaker 1: in to voice your dislike of one of our female
25:43
Speaker 1: reporters voices. You're not alone. We have a filter setup
25:46
Speaker 1: that automatically since these types of emails into a folder
25:49
Speaker 1: labeled zero priority. We'll review this folder and consider the
25:53
Speaker 1: complaints within. Well. Never Amazingly, we don't even have a
25:57
Speaker 1: folder for complaints about the mail voices on our show.
25:59
Speaker 1: But because we've never gotten one, isn't that strange? We
26:02
Speaker 1: think so? Anyway, I hope you can continue to enjoy
26:05
Speaker 1: your free podcast somehow. I love that one. Uh. And
26:09
Speaker 1: if you can't, there are plenty of shows that don't
26:11
Speaker 1: feature women's voices at all. Boom, I know that's one
26:15
Speaker 1: of the great all time auto applies. Yeah, that's pretty great, guys, So,
26:19
Speaker 1: Roman and Katie, good for you. I love it. Yeah,
26:23
Speaker 1: but you talked earlier about some of our colleagues also
26:25
Speaker 1: have gone to training and linguists to reduce their vocal fry.
26:31
Speaker 1: And uh, which one was it? Yeah, Jessica Gross who
26:36
Speaker 1: does a slate podcast or did I'm not sure if
26:39
Speaker 1: she's still doing it called double x cab Fest. She
26:42
Speaker 1: actually went to a voice coach after receiving complaints. And uh,
26:47
Speaker 1: people like Penny Eckert, who is a linguist are saying, no,
26:51
Speaker 1: don't do that, like you're an agent of change, is
26:55
Speaker 1: what you are, right, And that's um. The weird thing
26:58
Speaker 1: is is that would place if if we are watching, um,
27:03
Speaker 1: the evolution of Western speech, especially here in the United
27:06
Speaker 1: States right now, right and men are starting to vocal
27:09
Speaker 1: fry more and more. Men are starting to use up
27:11
Speaker 1: speak more and more, which suggests that these things are
27:13
Speaker 1: going to become increasingly widespread as the years go by.
27:17
Speaker 1: Then the women who are doing it now are in
27:20
Speaker 1: a like a really terrible position because they grew up
27:24
Speaker 1: talking like this and now they're being forced to change
27:28
Speaker 1: and and emulate. They'll they'll say the predominant white male
27:32
Speaker 1: version of talking while the men are adopting it more
27:36
Speaker 1: and more, and then eventually down the road, the women
27:38
Speaker 1: will be able to take it on again once enough
27:41
Speaker 1: men do. And that nuts, But that's probably where things
27:46
Speaker 1: are going. But in the meantime, people like Jessica Gross
27:49
Speaker 1: have to go to speech therapists to learn to talk
27:52
Speaker 1: right as far as her listeners go. And she was
27:55
Speaker 1: really worried that her career was being affected by this.
27:59
Speaker 1: And yeah, like you said, Penny Eckert, the linguists who
28:01
Speaker 1: who's UM quoted beneath her in this NPR article is
28:04
Speaker 1: saying like, yeah, this is ridiculous. You can't tell people
28:08
Speaker 1: how to talk, Like, I can't imagine a better way
28:11
Speaker 1: to just off handedly and casually trip somebody up and
28:15
Speaker 1: make them totally self conscious. Then saying, by the way
28:18
Speaker 1: your voice annoys everybody, do something about it. Yeah, I
28:22
Speaker 1: can't imagine freaget that gross also points out the MPR
28:26
Speaker 1: article is great. They did an interview with a few
28:28
Speaker 1: a few women UM linguists and podcasters, and she points
28:33
Speaker 1: out about it's not just with the voice, it's UM
28:35
Speaker 1: with clothes a wear, and she used Silicon Valley as
28:38
Speaker 1: an example. Mark Zuckerberg wears a T shirt and a
28:40
Speaker 1: hoodie to work every day, and all of a sudden,
28:43
Speaker 1: women who work in Silicon Valley, if you dress up
28:46
Speaker 1: and try and look nice, it's it goes against you. Yeah,
28:49
Speaker 1: you must be a dragon lady. Yeah, Like, what's wrong
28:52
Speaker 1: with you? Why you? What's are you not smart? While
28:55
Speaker 1: you're trying to you're trying to distract me with your
28:57
Speaker 1: good looks and you're nice skirt? Right? Where are something dumpy?
29:01
Speaker 1: So now, of course the culture there is you go
29:03
Speaker 1: to work in Silicon Valley with your stupid hoodie and
29:06
Speaker 1: T shirt on to fit in. So I also saw
29:08
Speaker 1: another example. There was a New York Magazine UM article
29:13
Speaker 1: from I'm not entirely certain win, but it was called UM,
29:17
Speaker 1: can we just like get over the way women talk?
29:20
Speaker 1: By Ann Friedman? It was from July, and she uh
29:24
Speaker 1: interviews a I think a feminist professor. Yeah, who's basically saying, like,
29:33
Speaker 1: women are damned one way or another, right, Like, if
29:35
Speaker 1: they talk like men, they come off as overly aggressive
29:38
Speaker 1: and assertive. If they talk like women, they come off
29:41
Speaker 1: as dumb and unable to h to stand behind what
29:45
Speaker 1: they're saying. You have any conviction about what they're saying,
29:47
Speaker 1: It's like, which one do you want? Well, in that case,
29:50
Speaker 1: it's like, well, if you're the agent of change, I
29:52
Speaker 1: just go with that one, the one that's changing, the
29:55
Speaker 1: one that that that you feel comfortable talking. Agreed. I
30:01
Speaker 1: read a cool article from The Guardian too that UM
30:04
Speaker 1: that showed that at Oxford University, young women get five
30:08
Speaker 1: ten percent fewer first class degrees in English, even though
30:12
Speaker 1: the exams are graded blindly, and professors there say it's
30:15
Speaker 1: because he observes female students and women saying like letting
30:21
Speaker 1: the men speak first and second and third before they
30:24
Speaker 1: even jump in, So they're not even getting a chance
30:27
Speaker 1: to like shine because they're just so used to deferring
30:31
Speaker 1: to the jens in the group. And I think that
30:33
Speaker 1: that's probably something it's not necessarily just gender based, but um,
30:38
Speaker 1: I think that that's just a lack of confidence. That's
30:42
Speaker 1: displaying a lack of confidence, and I think it comes
30:45
Speaker 1: from just being treated that way your whole life. Agreed. Uh,
30:50
Speaker 1: here's another one from Amy Giddon, is director of Corporate
30:53
Speaker 1: Leadership at Bernard's College Athenis Center for Leadership Studies. That's
30:58
Speaker 1: a long one and she said, the deal though, is
31:02
Speaker 1: there's a It's not that these women aren't confident. There's
31:05
Speaker 1: a disconnect going on because she interviewed these ladies and
31:09
Speaker 1: they are self advocates, and they feel like they're uh
31:14
Speaker 1: confident in their abilities and their smarts and ability to
31:18
Speaker 1: get things done, but they can't speak well about those
31:23
Speaker 1: things according to men in the room. So it's it's
31:27
Speaker 1: not a lack of confidence. They have the confidence, it's
31:30
Speaker 1: just I think her point was that men pay attention
31:34
Speaker 1: to what men say and how women say things not
31:37
Speaker 1: necessarily what they're saying, which is just stupid yea and
31:41
Speaker 1: not fair. Plus also I think, um, if you like,
31:45
Speaker 1: if you are around somebody that you don't like, you're
31:50
Speaker 1: probably going to focus more on their perceived flaws. And
31:54
Speaker 1: if it's something like vocal fry or something like uh
31:57
Speaker 1: up speak, you're going to you're gonna you're gonna zero
32:02
Speaker 1: win on that basically. Yeah, So I wonder like how
32:05
Speaker 1: much of it is just misogyny too? Oh man? And
32:08
Speaker 1: this one, this is a great quote. Uh, this is
32:12
Speaker 1: stuff is just one more way of telling powerful women
32:15
Speaker 1: to shut up. That kind of nails it on the head.
32:18
Speaker 1: Like I read that quote and that that crystallized it
32:20
Speaker 1: for me. It's like you said, it's disguised Uh not
32:25
Speaker 1: so like heavily disguised sexism. I think it's repulsive. It is. See,
32:34
Speaker 1: are you got anything else? I got nothing else except
32:36
Speaker 1: just to you know, be yourself, be an agent of change.
32:41
Speaker 1: Don't listen to Bob Garfield, you know what. I hope
32:47
Speaker 1: this gets to him, Uh if you, oh man, it
32:53
Speaker 1: really might more with Bob Garfield, if you that'll bear
32:56
Speaker 1: a second. This year, who was the other. Oh, the
32:59
Speaker 1: Australia in jerk. Yeah. If you want to learn more
33:03
Speaker 1: about vocal fry, you can step out on the street
33:06
Speaker 1: and prick up your ears. You can also go to
33:08
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com and type those words in
33:10
Speaker 1: the search bar. And since I said perk, it's time
33:14
Speaker 1: for a listener mail, I'm gonna call this cult deprogramming
33:18
Speaker 1: um guys who grew up in a cultish environment. It
33:21
Speaker 1: wasn't like Jim Jones Crew. However, the group made a
33:23
Speaker 1: clear distinction between us and them, and getting out was difficult.
33:27
Speaker 1: I was only able to get free a couple of
33:29
Speaker 1: years ago, at the age of twenty four, and because
33:32
Speaker 1: of most of my current friends are still involved, I
33:34
Speaker 1: have ended the courage to tell them I'm still not
33:36
Speaker 1: out yet. I attended an independent Fundamental Baptist Church. Baptist
33:41
Speaker 1: churches in general aren't cults. In fact, I still attended
33:43
Speaker 1: Baptist Church, but the I F B Churches are a
33:46
Speaker 1: thing into themselves. They stand opposed to modern music, alcohol,
33:50
Speaker 1: and all Bible translations except the King James version. Uh.
33:54
Speaker 1: Some take it further and add movie theaters, pants on women,
33:57
Speaker 1: beards on men, swimming, and mixed coum any and anything
34:00
Speaker 1: else you can imagine to the list of the foreboding. Uh.
34:03
Speaker 1: These ideas problematic because there are not why I consider
34:05
Speaker 1: my previous environment to meet cultish. Rather, it was an
34:08
Speaker 1: attitude with which they viewed dissent. Modern Bible versions are
34:11
Speaker 1: not simply inferior than King James. They are part of
34:14
Speaker 1: the conspiracy to introduce error into God's word and poison
34:19
Speaker 1: believers faith. Modern music, even contemporary worship music, channels demons
34:23
Speaker 1: and feeds the flesh. It even kills plants. He didn't
34:29
Speaker 1: follow up on that. Asking why we should believe these
34:31
Speaker 1: things is welcome since it gives the leaders an opportunity
34:35
Speaker 1: to allow I'm sorry, I all for canned answers that
34:38
Speaker 1: we can regurgitate two liberal contemporary crowd end quote. So basically,
34:46
Speaker 1: you're not questioning the interpretation, you're questioning God himself. So uh,
34:50
Speaker 1: he says. Now, I am happily a member of a
34:52
Speaker 1: more contemporary Baptist church that, while still fairly conservative it's
34:55
Speaker 1: beliefs and practices, is much more open minded. Keep up
34:59
Speaker 1: the awesome more that is from Anonymous, because I will
35:04
Speaker 1: hunt him down. Thanks Anonymous, appreciate that. Yeah, he was like, oh,
35:10
Speaker 1: totally read it. He or she that is, yeah, did
35:13
Speaker 1: you give it away? Take my name off of it?
35:16
Speaker 1: He or she said that yes they did. If you
35:20
Speaker 1: want to supplement an episode that we have recorded, you
35:24
Speaker 1: can get in touch with us by tweeting to us
35:27
Speaker 1: at S why SK Podcast. You can join us on
35:30
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You can
35:33
Speaker 1: send us an email to Stuff Podcast at house stuff
35:36
Speaker 1: works dot com, and as always, join us at our
35:39
Speaker 1: home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com
35:47
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics because
35:49
Speaker 1: it house stuff works dot com