"Barbie" voices

Posted by: browser57

"Barbie" voices - 05/08/07 03:29 PM

Has anyone encountered a young girl who's speech you cannot understand? This has been an issue with me for awhile now. We have a beautiful young lady (in her early 20's) that does the traffic report on a local tv station. She has this high pitched, sing-song voice that is impossible to understand. There are days that I pray for anyone depending on her report - because, it is unintelligible. It's such a shame. She's just got all the exterior stuff going for her - but once she opens her mouth - yikes. We also had a waitress the other night - same thing. After she rattled off the 'nightly specials' and walked away - DH just looked at me and asked "What did she say?

While living in the south a few years back I was amazed that there were classes for young boys and girls that teach the finer social graces. You could really tell which kids had had the training and which had not.

I know our schools today could not be expected to teach this, but it would be nice to see something extracurricular - for those who are planning a career in the public eye.
Posted by: Eagle Heart

Re: "Barbie" voices - 05/08/07 11:11 PM

Browser, I had a similar experience earlier today when I called my dentist office to make an appointment. The receptionist was clearly flustered at something happening at her end and spoke so quickly that I could barely understand what she was saying - and I had to really assert myself to get a word in about when I wanted the appointment or else she would have booked it and hung up without even checking to see if it was a good time for me! As it was she hung up before I even had a chance to verify the date and time.
Posted by: chatty lady

Re: "Barbie" voices - 05/09/07 12:20 AM

Write letters and complain. I do and believe me it does get their attention.
Posted by: browser57

Re: "Barbie" voices - 05/09/07 01:07 AM

I thought of writing the tv station - but she's probably some big shot's daughter. It just amazes me that she got the job. Of course, look at what they hold up as role models - the likes of Britney, Paris, etc. Not much to emulate is there.
Posted by: yonuh

Re: "Barbie" voices - 05/09/07 03:40 AM

It's not just the young'uns that have those voices. There is a real estate agent who advertises here that has one of those high, grating voices, and an older women who does news reports. Every time they come on the TV I start yelling at them to breathe from the diaphragm and not from the nose! Their voices are like nails on a chalkboard to me - drives me nuts! These are mature women who shouldn't sound like they're 8 years old.

Guess you can tell this hit a nerve! LOL
Posted by: Anno

Re: "Barbie" voices - 05/09/07 10:51 AM

I can't imagine being in the public eye without taking some sort of speech class. It doesn't take that much to learn to speak properly.
Posted by: ShirleyValentine

Re: "Barbie" voices - 05/10/07 12:54 AM

Not quite sure what you mean, would it be something like the voices I hear when my son watches this show on MTV about 16 year old kids who have gigantic and hugely expensive parties?
Now they grate.

In englishspeak, my friend's daughter (17) has taken to ending every sentence like a question? That and sprinkling the word 'like' randomly into her speech.
Example: So we went to see this, like, fantastic show? And the lead singer was, like, so amazing?

araargh!!!! :bangshead:
Posted by: Edelweiss

Re: "Barbie" voices - 05/10/07 06:05 AM

It's really strange, but I have noticed over the past years that German women speak at least an octave deeper than American women or girls. I wonder why.

There are so many Turks in the German schools that speak with a strong Turkish jargon and accent, that many teenage German students have adopted their slang. Now how weird is that? Why isn't it the other way around?
Posted by: orchid

Re: "Barbie" voices - 05/12/07 03:35 PM

Quote:

It's really strange, but I have noticed over the past years that German women speak at least an octave deeper than American women or girls. I wonder why.

There are so many Turks in the German schools that speak with a strong Turkish jargon and accent, that many teenage German students have adopted their slang. Now how weird is that? Why isn't it the other way around?




I don't even know what a Turkish accent sounds like. What is it?

Will be interesting to see how the teenage girls today will be like 20 yrs. from now in terms of their speech patterns.

Myself and 4 sisters have alto voices...I think it's because our mother tongue is Chinese, a tonal language, that to speak English we flatten our tones and lower our voice an octave.

It's all natural and unconscious. Just something I've noticed...over the years. But then where are some other Chinese female dominanat families where that isn't quite true when they switch to English.
Posted by: jawjaw

Re: "Barbie" voices - 05/12/07 03:41 PM

I've run into sales clerks like this before, or a service person over the phone. I usually say something like, "Now hold on there honey, I'm Southern and so I promise to speak faster if you'll promise to speak slower, k?" They usually laugh and DO slow down. If they don't, I just sit quitely until they say, "are you still there?" at which point I say, "Un huh, I'm just waiting on my brain to catch up to warp speed."

Again...laughter follows, and we usually meet in the middle.
Posted by: Laurel

Re: "Barbie" voices - 05/12/07 06:28 PM

I tell them they're going to have to slow down. I can't hear as fast as you talk.

My daughter talks ninety miles an hour. My husband and I have to tell her to slow down because we don't know what in the world she just said.

I must have a little girl's voice because even friends of ours will ask to speak to my mother when I answer the phone.

Laurel
Posted by: NewLeaf

Re: "Barbie" voices - 05/29/07 01:33 AM

Me too, Laurel! My job is on the phone for 8 hrs. a day 5 days a week. I get called "honey" and "sweetheart" and "dear". I have one of those "angelic" voices I guess.

Now, take laughs....there's this guy at work who laughts and when he does, it just grates on my last nerve. He laughs like a Herkermer, like huck, huck, huck with breaks in his laughter like a hormonal teen.

One night I even went on a search for him to see what kind of man would laugh like that! I've heard female laughter that sounds like a tropical bird call and one of the things that unnerves me more than anything else is to be speaking to someone who says something and then laughs like, "I walked across the street today" haw haw haw, "I went shopping with my uncle." haw haw haw. My mind is screaming, "Its not funny!" Maybe its a nervous habit, but what the heck do you do when someone you're speaking to laughs at everything! I have to wonder if they've been smoking pot.
Posted by: NewLeaf

Re: "Barbie" voices - 05/30/07 05:55 AM

You know what gets me!!?? I'll be out in public and see an old fart with a young chick with an annoying chirpy voice and think she is his daughter only to realize she is the mother of his child.

Why can't women be in a relationship with someone young enough to be their son? My brother who is 54 married a young woman my oldest daughter's age. He is 20 years older than her. Truthfully, they get along great. They seem to really love each other.

Why do women seem to be the outcasts of society when they start to age? Look at Harrison Ford and Calista Lockhart. I'll bet he has to hire a committee to move his face when he wants to laugh. And Larry King,that ugly old fart has a baby. I guess as long as the gun is loaded, they are still in the hunt.
Posted by: chatty lady

Re: "Barbie" voices - 06/01/07 11:04 AM

That old fart Larry King hes two young sons. There is and always has been a double standard between men growing old and women growing old. Stinks!!!
Posted by: NewLeaf

Re: "Barbie" voices - 06/01/07 02:35 PM

I think its because women are supposed to be beautiful and seductive their whole life and men's idea of beauty is supple, smooth skin and big boobs, a lineless face and thin. I've seen men go nuttsy over a woman just because she is thin and yet has the face of Alice Cooper! Sucking on one cigarette after the other and laughing like a rusty gate.

If you go on the dating websites its all about thin. I'm starting to think the chubs don't look too bad. Its whats in the heart and mind that matter most. My ex was thin but looked like Sponge Bob. Skinny legs and arms, a chubby tummy and square middrift and a big head and big feet.

Yet, he abhorred chubby or fat women. When I gained a pound or too he would say, "Well, I never say anything about your weight," course, he just did by saying he never does.....what a loser!