Vocal Fry: what it is, who does it, and why people hate it!
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- čas přidán 19. 05. 2024
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An exploration of vocal fry: what it is, who does it, what it means-and why some people hate it!
0:00 Introduction: what is vocal fry?
2:17 Is vocal fry used at the end of sentences?
6:30 Teens and rich people who don't give a ****?
8:40 Vocal fry and glottal stops
10:56 Vocal fry from males
11:20 Vocal fry in other English accents
12:25 Vocal fry in RP
15:40 Vocal fry in other languages
17:02 Is vocal fry a pathology?
17:43 Vocal fry in singing
18:03 Are women better at vocal fry?
20:22 Vocal fry vs. breathy voice
22:27 What does vocal fry symbolize?
24:40 Vocal fry and Uptalk
25:23 Annoying creaks
26:08 Creaking and horror
Stuff Mom Never Told You • Why do girls have crea...
Boston U: What Nasal Endoscopy Can Tell Us About Voice Health • What Nasal Endoscopy C...
Mayo Clinic Minute: What happens when you vocal fry • Mayo Clinic Minute: Wh...
Praat speech analysis app www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/
Science Friday www.sciencefriday.com/segment...
BBC news 1939 • BBC News - September 2...
C. S. Lewis • C.S Lewis Recording - ...
Identifying Vocal Fry Using Deep Neural Networks www.researchgate.net/publicat...
Vocal fry and perceived fluency www.researchgate.net/publicat...
Chao, M., & Bursten, J. (2021). Girl Talk: Understanding Negative Reactions to Female Vocal Fry. Hypatia, 36(1), 42-59. doi:10.1017/hyp.2020.55
C. S. Lewis plaque by Albert Bridge Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
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I love your videos. You have given me an insight, and knowledge into a subject I would have never known about. Not only have oyu educated on linguisitics, but you've provided cultural context in an objective way. I love it
As someone who developed vocal fry from an esophageal disorder + acid reflux, I’d really appreciate a video on how your voice can be damaged by illness, disease, or even tobacco and alcohol.
Is it the same as the robotic voice you can do by breathing in while talking instead of breathing out?
Dr Lindsey, I think you need to check out the throat singing phenomena, isn't it basically only vocal fry?
Actually, watching this, I think that the use of vocal fry at the end of sentences is actually unintentional genius.
We've all sometimes talked over each other because we failed to recognise when another person had actually finished speaking. Mistaking a mere pause for the end of a sentence. Often compounded if one's talking to a work colleague over Zoom or Teams, as there's also some unavoidable latency to sending the data over the Internet to account for as well.
But if everyone naturally signalled sentence end with vocal fry, we'd know when it was safe to speak. And if it's expected for everyone to do so, then we'd have a natural mechanism of conceding the conversation.
This would be so much more orderly. Why don't languages naturally have such universal "signals" for sentence / thought ending already? It'd be so useful.
As a linguist who has spent time in Finland and speaks the language, I feel incredibly stupid now for never noticing how pervasive vocal fry is in Finnish.
Yeah finns are very creaky sounding
Well I'm a Finn, and while not a linguist, I'm still pretty interested in languages and this video gave me an existential crisis, as I've never realised our tendency to speak with creaky voices. If vocal fry is this prevalent in Finland and I'm not going to be able to unhear it from now on, what do I do? Leave the country? 😂
@@manchagojohnsonmanchago6367❤]pp😢
Then there's me, a third year linguistics student
I've lived in Finland and spoken Finnish my whole life....
@@FINNSTIGAT0R Oil your countrymen.
I got an ad in the middle of this that had so much vocal fry that I thought it was another example.
😂😂😂😂😂
😂
The Colgate one? I thought it was a part of the video he was ending on to set up the next section!
This made me chuckle :)
Colgate? I got Geoff's own embedded ad for the VPN (which means Geoff actually gets the money it generates) but my adblocker must have bypassed the toothpaste. @@crs290
This made me remember a line from Terry Pratchett's books which said a character's voice sounded so posh that he was practically speaking in a modulated yawn.
😅 I remember that line!
Rest in peace Terry. I can't bring myself to read his last book because then the adventure will be over 😢
Wasn't that was the two horsey girls schooling with Susan - who could put 4 vowels into 'oh' - 'oeuwa' 🤣
@nixm9093 oh don't punish yourself. Very worth it 😁👍 ps just do wut I do and restart with 'Colour'...carpet people..truckers..Johnny...
I call it “smoker’s voice” but “creaky voice” sounds to my ear the most accurate.
same here... they sound like they fried their vocal cords sucking on too many .. cigarettes
I called it Froggy voice.
Smokers voice is more breathy like our dear host, because smoking a great deal can make you lose your voice.
Of course, you could also chain smoke your whole life and be Dean Martin lol
I call it “octopus neck” since it sounds like someone trying to talk with a large octopus’ tentacle wrapped around their throat
I called it the coca burp voice.
Speech Pathologist here: Vocal fry can be used as a fluency strategy for people who stutter, especially for those who struggle with blocks. It offers additional tactile feedback with phonations and relaxes muscles involved in phonation.
Fascinating!!! Good to be aware of!!! Thank you!!
Or you can scat, like Scatman!
The human brain is so amazing
that’s so neat!! i’ve thought about going back to school to become a speech pathologist. do you like it?
Oh.... I didn't even know this... I'm a stutterer, I'll try it.
Your edit of George Saunders and Bond vs Loudermilk was absolute comedy gold, Doc! Would love even more of those even by themselves at some point in the future either to illustrate concepts or just because they're funny. You have a good feel for them, clearly.
Yeah, but Loudermilk did say it was something rich people do and those examples were from people that at least appear to be rich! Dr G did kinda prove their point
@@charliejoseph6465 I see what you mean but I don't think Dr G did prove Loudermilk's point. If their point was just that rich people use it then that would be right, but their point was that it's a sound "rich people use to sound like they don't give a shit" and particularly in the jack scenes he very much does give a shit. And aside from that literal point there's also the very clear insinuation from Loudermilk about vocal fry being negative, there isn't the same insinuation in those clips
Lol second meme channel Dr Geoff Memesay. Just cut the humorous/interesting clip edits without the explained xD.
TRULY!!!!
@@mevans6910 I guess as a socialist of cockney descent, the sound of their voices is more upsetting to me than most 😆
I realize as this is 8 months old I will not likely be read. I was trying to copy vocal fry as I was listening, Then I tried to lose the fry and I realized to my shock I speak with vocal fry and find it difficult to speak without it. It's not like the extreme examples, but eradicating it I find difficult. I learned something new. 😬
Practice vocalisation by bringing air into your lungs (rising chest), project your throat upwards and speak a notch higher. Just give it a try, all the best.
As an American woman, neither a teenager nor rich, I must admit I never noticed this notion called "vocal fry". However, now I won't ever be able to unhear it.
I think part of the reason it seems to stand out more in women's voices is that men's voiced tend to be deeper, so there's less contrast between 'normal' voice and vocal fry.
i have also always thought this and it seemed so clear in the eric singer example. surprised dr lindsey didn't mention it!
I agree! Although the spectrogram also showed that the woman's fry was more efficient / energetic in an absolute sense
Keen observation, @ansatsusha8660.
nah its equally as obvious to me, but i think people expect women to have high and smooth voices all the time and dont like it when we have noticable vocal fry
Exactly.
The one thing that bugs me about vocal fry is, once it is pointed out, it is so hard to not focus on.
I heard vocal fry while reading your comment
The thing that bothers me about it, is that it makes everything the person says, sound like a question. It makes the speaker sound incredibly unsure of their own statements, and I instinctively feel they are subconsciously admitting to not being a reliable source of information.
Personally it drives me to madness making the person sound like some West Coast drug addict with no brains
Agreed!!
@@carultch I don't think it sounds all like a question. What sounds like a question to me is "up speak." 😀
Absolutely genius how you used an example of vocal fry that advocated the values of VPN use, shortly before jumping into your Private VPN advert. Chef's kiss.
This is wonderful. Please also address the upward tilt at the end of sentences that women use in speech that almost sounds like a question -- and also address the phenomenon of teen girls who talk like this: "Please leave me alone--aaaa." Or if someone tells them to do something, they'll reply, "Noooo-waaa! I don't want to do that. You're driving me crazyy-aaa."
That reminded me of multiple coworkers about a third of my age who never say "What?" when they didn't hear something or didn't understand something; they say, "What happened?" (I want to reply, "What happened to what?")
@@bobdavis4848 What's wrong with that? Bit pedantic.
@@tricksor6589 Because they don't mean it to be short for "What happened to..." something. They only intend it to mean "What did you say?" Why the needless elongation of the question "What?" has caught on puzzles me, as I've always been curious about the English language. I don't correct people to their faces every time I hear it of course.
@@bobdavis4848 Haha I haven't experienced that one myself but I understand exactly what you're saying! People are disgusting
I feel like the video speaker does upspeak or whatever it's called
As a Finnish person aware of vocal fry, I never really realised how common it was in Finnish. Only ever really paid attention to it in English.
My experience as an American working with a team of Finns is that most sound like they smoke a dozen cigarettes a day (and well, many of them do 😂)
Same for me being English and hearing finnish in the examples. Maybe that's because my only exposure to Finnish nowadays is the cha cha cha guy.
@@charleskatzer2210a dozen? thats rookie numbers
I'm part Finnish but had to learn Finnish myself, and i thought it was incredibly noticeable in Finnish, so much so that i automatically mimicked it quite early on. my mum's comment: "älä puhu kuin ukkisi"
As a non finn here, it's the first thing I noticed about finns, it is hard for me to do it Finnish when I tried to speak finnish 😂
This has been so eye-opening, especially the part where you mention uptalk vs. vocal fry. Looking back I’m realizing that I (young American woman) truly do use uptalk when I’m trying to sound non-threatening or unauthoritative, and I use vocal fry when I’m relaxed or even confident around the other person. In hindsight I understood how each would be perceived but only subconsciously. Until today. Phenomenal video!!! :)
Thank you! But it's extremely common for speakers to use both Uptalk and vocal fry, in the same sentence.
@@DrGeoffLindsey Wouldn't that combination be precisely what people find annoying? Not vocal fry per se, which would explain why vocal fry examples from Britain etc. are not an object of criticism.
Thank you too! The older generations hear constant vocal fry as pretentious affectation and assume the speaker is as stupid as a Kardashian. But often enough, vocal fryers aren't even aware.
At that point all I could really think of is how men tend to do drop octaves and increase the base when they want to be authoritative and heard, and increase it when we want to be generally ignored or seem non-threatening. So I wonder, since getting to vocal fry and lowering the register of your voice are pretty similar movements, women do it easier because their access to the lower register "cuts off" earlier producing vocal fry, whereas you might see men might finally hit vocal fry at a far lower frequencies.
Uptalking, vocal fry and pushing the sound through their nose. A horrible combination we never heard in America just 20 years ago. Mostly women and effeminate men.
I recommended this video to my voice and speech teacher! He had us watch it for class just a couple weeks later!!
Your videos are always amazing, informative, and entertaining!
I remember being in middle school and making some new friends at camp. I couldn't place the difference, but I did like the way they talked. It sounded cool, relaxed, approachable and inspired. When I brought it home I thought no one would notice, but my mother noticed and questioned me about it.
I was hearing it at work around 2012, and noticed something since then, that happens nearly every time. When there is 1 *_vocal-fryer_* attending a meeting with others who do *not* vocal fry, the *_non-fryers_* will start to *vocal fry,* following subconsciously the creaky lead of the vocal-fryers. It's annoying but a funny phenomenon.
Yeah, that's sheeple group dynamics. I would certainly do the exact opposite.
@@dkpianist shut up incel
I know of one woman who is very unfashionable.. my partner … and I am grateful
I definitely DO NOT do what you're saying. 😬
There's an ad playing right now, before the video begins and I'm sure she's frying. But, I'll click skip in a moment to be sure frying is what I think it is.
Now that you pointed this out, I can't unhear it and it drives me nuts 🙉
SAME! Now I hate talking to people even more!
@@RogueAlchemist Vocal fry is a Roko's Basilisk. Don't look up Roko's Basilisk or you're done, just like I am.
@Crossfirev the fact that you even mentioned it has doomed dozens.
@@jailoutafreecard4414 this was partially the point. Humans will seek, even if warned not too 🥲
I just developed a new allergy: vocal fry.
That ending was pure gold! LOL Loved this entire video :)
I think that sometimes what is percieved as "vocal fry" when slowing down video clips is actually a result of sound sample speed. Because we are used to a very fast sample speed with sound (most commonly 44,100 samples per second), compared to video (usually 24-60 frames per second in US and 25-50 in UK), slowed down audio can appear to have the bursts of sound quality that is found with vocal fry, when, in reality, it is consistent sound but inconsistent audio playback.
As a foreigner living in Finland and who has a strong vocal fry when speaking in English, this study about the importance of vocal fry in Finnish is giving me hope 😂
I think the reason the Finnish speak that way is because so many of them are emotionless psychopaths.
I am learning Finnish and I catch myself! I am trying to remember,. switch back! I do sound different in other languages.
😂😄🤣
It's not "important". It's just common (these days) and horrible.
@@valkoharja Regardless of if you think it sounds ugly or not, it's still important for non-native speakers trying to sound more native.
This was ridiculously educational about a subject I've never considered but should have.
the reasoning is a bit subjective.
I wouldn't say the reasoning was subjective. I think he examined real-life examples and previous scholarship, and thus came to a conclusion.
I always thought there was something toady about those people. Infact..
I read “have” here with a strong vocal fryyyyyy
why do you think "you should have?" I find myself partway through this thinking...who cares? and this isn't to insult the video nor the creator, I am an consumer of knowledge for knowledge' sake, the more esoteric the better. But do I expect this to actually change or affect a single choice I make in life? I don't.
Love this format! Many of the topics discussed here, I didn’t notice much before and I like the explanations.
Greetings from Germany
I'm a Finnish person. Anglophone. I got a violent reaction from you pointing out that Finns use so much vocal fry. I KNEW it on some level, but I had never connected it to the vocal fry I hear in English.
Oh GOD this is a massive revelation.
Probably why I found myself a British therapist instead of using a Finnish one.
OMFG I'm still reeling over this. THAT'S why I hate listening to most Finnish speakers and most Finnish TV (and I genuinely have avoided anything in Finnish media for like 15 years.)
Ugh.
Thank you Doctor!
When I was in university, I had a professor whose voice made it sound like he was being sarcastic about everything. He had to preface every new class by warning people that he wasn't attacking them or anyone; his voice just had that drawl and fry naturally. Watching this is incredibly enlightening.
And his warning also was sarcastic 😏
Which is why it is weird to me that this guy said it was young women. It's both men and women
ddi you even watch the video?@@CarolinaSearching
@Waitingforwhatcomes He notes its stereotypically seen in American women and that it's more common in women and Finland as an accent. He notes males have it too, and Hollywood portrayals created the attack like 60 years ago, and also modern Hollywood and media creating it. He also notes that some of the attacks that pretend to be professional are fake and increased viewers to believe it and that it's not dangerous nor any of what false information has put on it to attack it. Also, just noting women also seems better at being able to use it, which the voice box is smaller with women due to testosterone levels in males generally increasing sizes in everything. So it makes a lot of sense why the voice varies between male in female voices just the same.
@@WinoaKaronhiatens Yes, I heard that. I said, it is not 'stereotypically' seen in women, it is just pointed out in women much more than it is in men.
Fantastic examples. As an older American woman who has lived in France for thirty years I also reacted to vocal fry in young American women with great annoyance and wished they would stop. Now I wonder why I have this reaction since it doesn't bother me in the male actors. Excellent work.
I think it all goes back to the whole valley girl image and accent from the 80s and 90s. TV didn't let that stereotype go for a lonnnng time and now these poor girls are being looked down on just for trying to speak in their regular voice.
The fact that it doesn't bother you or me in male British actors with "posh" RP accents tells me that, despite all Dr. Lindsay's linguistic rocket science, these two vocal phenomena are NOT the same thing. And, as Dr. Lindsay pointed out, it certainly isn't limited to females. Those British male examples annoyed me just as much as the "Valley Girl" extracts, if not more, probably because they are more pretentious.
@@DieFlabbergast I don't think you are using "valley girl" in the right way. The stereotypical "valley girl" speech is extremely different from anything shown in this video. But at any rate, you have obviously missed the point. _You_ are assigning pretention to the ordinary speech of other people. _They_ are not being pretentious, just speaking the way they learned to speak. Nobody has to adopt the dialect you expect them to.
Could it have something to do with the fact that vocal fry makes women's voices sound more low-pitched, which is (at least subconsciously) seen as "unbecoming" to women?
@@uyttebPersonally I find that low voices in women sound fantastic. Think Lauren Bacall, and all those soul singers.
Actual lol at the end with the Airbnb bit. Kudos to the laugh, and the content through and through.
Really interesting video that made me examine my prejudices (and reverse them).
Good on you!
Refreshing to see this kind of comment instead of generic, petty repetitions of the same attitudes and prejudices for once lol.
I'm FInnish but also very fluent in English. After watching this, I realized I use vocal fry almost all the time when speaking in Finnish, but very little when I'm speaking English. It's mindblowing!
There is the BBC use as a vehicle for dative conveyance of information,and of course the abuse and brow beaters.😉
Yeah, me too. And talking when breathing in, I can easily do that in Finnish but not in any other language!
Oh that's why my English sounds foreign. Fried like bacon 😂
You’re confusing whiskey voice with vocal fry. Whiskey voice is cool. Vocal fry is for people who think they are too cool to bother breathing while they speak to you. Finns are so cool they can speak breathing IN as well as out, effortlessly!
@@chriskelvin248 Thanks, we are cool. It's the weather.
As a millennial American woman with injuries to her vocal chords, I do vocal fry sometimes but I always notice I'm doing it and feel very embarrassed about it. I got really sick as a young teenager and wound up in intensive care isolation unit with no voice at all. My trachea was moments from collapsing when I arrived at the hospital. It took months before I could talk again and years before I could shout again. I had trouble singing for two decades, often not being able to sing more than one song before my voice went out. When I go a few days without taking to people regularly (which does happen since I'm a single autistic female living alone) I lose my voice. Over the next few days while I'm trying to get it back, I'm permanently in vocal fry, but it's embarrassing because people are always asking if I just woke up, no matter what time of day it is. I have found that if I sing a lot on the days I'm alone and not talking to anyone, that helps. It's hard to remember though and to make sure I sing enough songs to prevent it. I really wish I didn't have these problems.
I don't think you should be embarrassed.
I never noticed it before this video.
I’m also autistic and I too lose my ‘voice’ if I don’t talk for a long amount of time.
I’m a Stay at home Parent and frequently speak in a high register when talking to my five year old. When I’m talking to my spouse and other adults I swap it out for an easier to use lower register, and I get vocal fry because my voice is tired lol.
You guys just do you. Most people would never notice and all the nice people would never judge 😊
Speech Pathologist here: Don’t feel bad about it please. So long as people understand what you’re trying to communicate, and it doesn’t interfere with your identity as a communicator, keep on being you with it regardless of how it came about. Fun fact: Vocal fry can be used as a strategy to assist people who stutter to stutter less as is offers more tacticle feedback from within the throat, and it helps to relax muscles of phonation, helping to reduce blocks for people who stutter. 😊
If it helps, most people I know think the "just woke up" voice sounds really pleasant.
I must have weird ears, because I much prefer the way fry sounds to higher-pitched speech of nearly any kind... 😅Yours isn't bad to me, Dr Lindsay, I have to add. I find your breathiness nice to listen to. In contrast, hard attack bothers me particularly when it's overused in everyday speech. Thanks for the awesome and informative video! Subscribed! 🔥
Thank you Dr. This is an absolute eye opener. I am an native Finnish speaker with a high level of English proficiency. I have watched your videos and I think you are right on the money. The things like rhotic-ness and pronunciation in general are really answering the hard questions in my mind about pronunciation and translitteration. Fascinating.
For me as a Finn, I find fry more serious. You could see it here as well in the video, all the examples where from news shows and interviews. I think that when you start using fry in Finland you signal that you are calmer and more serious.
As a Swede, I agree with that. I don't have a negative opinion of it. Rather, the negative aspects of the early examples in the video has more to do with the nasal quality of the voice. The creaking itself isn't relevant to me concerning annoyance.
Public Note to Self: Never go to Finland.
Yes! It's like things get now really serious...you go down to nitty gritty 😄 Also, those horror story examples are sometimes like our news reposters: "Beware beware, the horror of my news is here!"
@@AnotherDuck This is an excellent point! It's the nasalness that's annoying, not the fry as such.
Another try to put finns down again. Finns don't talk like that.
I am a Finn and live in other countries. Nobody told anything negative about the finnish accent. Vice versa ppl mostly told Finnish accent is pretty.
I watched this video because I knew the term "vocal fry" from singing. It now makes a lot more sense why it's considered bad for your voice when singing because trying to get regular resonance is generally what a classical sound is looking for. For me personally, realizing that I as a male talk with a lot of vocal fry makes me understand why people expect me to be singing the bass part when usually I am among the highest of the tenors in any given choir. It also explains why my comfortable talking "pitch" is about an octave lower than my comfortable singing pitch, and also why I have so low of notes whilst also having high notes. I know you specialize in speech phonology, but I would love to see you tackle difference between singing and talking, especially in English.
Fun fact: in metal vocal fry is often used to produce distorted vocals and many singers have been singing professionally with extreme fry for decades.
@@BorghBorgh I also got interested in the video because I knew the term vocal fry from metal and the like genres
things like Mongolian throat singing wouldn't exist or be what they are, without vocal fry, so it does have its place.
Just say: '(That's) why I have such low notes', then you don't have to use strange, new expressions like 'so low of notes'. People already know and understand the word 'such'. (Sorry, just trying to help! No offence intended🙂)
I second this!
I would LOVE a Lindsey video about native English speakers changing their accent to sing, which speakers using which accents and why!
I appreciate the depth and breadth of these lessons and always learn more than expected.
If there were awards for editing in CZcams videos.... gold, pure gold!
This is the kind of content I'm fascinated by: take something everyone has some shallow opinion about, delve deeply and seriously on it, and bring back a complete, informative content from which prejudice and pseudoscience were judiciously removed. Congratulations!
what the heck is "criteriously "?
I still hate it
You're fascinated by smoke and mirrors in long format? That's nothing to be proud of.
@@theorncampbell4432 why, it takes time and knowledge to properly justify a point of view, and that video presents both. At least, that's what I think and the reason why I liked it.
@@antoniocjp5824 I research and draft text for a living. This video is an example of spin and loosely related facts used to construct a shaky narrative. It replaces compelling information with trendy editing and pop-culture talking points.
I think an important factor in Male vs Female is the difference in contrast. Men tend to have lower voices so it is easier for the gravely sound of the fry to blend in providing a percusive element, but not as noticable a change to pitch or tambour. Since women often have higher voices, the fry stands out more, both against the their individual voice, but also against expectations of what women's voice should sound like.
Exactly. It sounds like you’re whispering out of nowhere. Very jarring.
Sorry for being unnecessarily pedantic but I think the word you were looking for was "timbre". I know what I did was more annoying than a vocal fry.
@@rohitchaojiit wasn't more annoying. Nice try though
@@anonymousbloke1 Naah being pedantic about spelling is definitely more annoying.
On a bus recently was a male female couple both talking virtually the entire time with each other using vocal fry. Seemed like an intimacy thing.
Henry Kissinger used to speak in such a low-pitched warbling croak that it needed much concentration to follow his meaning. Connotation of physical sounds seems to be a moving-target, but what seems unquestionable about this kind of voice is that it requires very little energy to produce, so becomes a convenient practice.
I appreciate your analysis and the acknowledgment of the social reaction to vocal fry being rooted in classism/sexism/ ageism. At the same time, this obsession with vocal fry is SO wild because it normalizes the dismissal of a speaker (often young people and women) when their style of speaking evoke the ‘wrong’ emotional response in the listener.
This is interesting to me because, as a music-lover, I associate the term with singing. In genres such as rock, metal, jazz, musical theatre and pop, it's a strong positive point if a vocalist (regardless of gender) can use vocal fry selectively.
I hadn't heard it in the context of speech, but I'm guessing this is where musicians got it from? It also clears up my confusion about the description (the bit about people hating it).
I was randomly recommended this video and clicked on it for this reason lol. The only time I had seen it talked about before was in relation to singers like David Draiman.
yeah, same
I’m so happy to have read the CZcams comments for once in my life just to read this. I didn’t know this was a thing at all and I’m a huge music lover too… I don’t know many singers though, and the ones I do aren’t ever talking about vocal fry (they’re singers for doomy crusty stoner rock type stuff.. why the heck am I not hearing them talk about vocal fry?! 😂)
I'm not a vocalist and I can do that too, to me it really depends also on how tired I am and how much effort I can consciously put into trying to speak perfectly for everyone to be content lol but also, when it is done on purpose and over the top as in the video with the bartender I can see how it is just "trendy" but I genially think that for most people it is very subtle and they do not care as much about it
I'm not much of a music lover, but before this video I hadn't associated the term with anything except music. Though I must confess that exaggerated vocal fry in speech does sound annoying to me. On the flip side, almost any exaggerated vocal pattern gets annoying to listen to.
Putting the strong can exception in the sponsor section was genius, can’t believe I was actually motivated to pay attention to an ad
I don't understand the strong/weak can('t)
Airbnb written on the door in the shining made me laugh 😂 Very interesting video!
I just realized, I speak German (native), English and Japanese basically completely in vocal fry, while I speak Korean a lot higher, more nasal and without any fry. Fascinating.
As a non-native English speaker, my complaint about vocal fry is that it makes it much harder to understand what is being said. The male main actor (the father, I forgot his name) in the movie Interstellar spoke almost entirely in vocal fry and that was when I actually realized what vocal fry was. I had to turn up the volume to hear and understand what he said.
yes! Mathew McConaughey. it's impossible to understand him
As a native english speaker this happens to me with japanese. Japanese male speech has a hefty bit of vocal fry making it a lot more difficult to understand since you're basically just taught neutral or female speech in books and classes.
The mixing levels of Interstellar are notoriously bad, and Nolan does it knowingly. It’s not a good indication of anything.
If you had the power to turn up the volume, that means you weren't watching in a theater. The sound mixing in _Interstellar_ is a big middle finger to people who watch at home on anything but a high-end sound system. It's pretty much designed on purpose so that you can't hear anything unless you have surround sound to separate channels and are playing it at high volume. I assume they wanted a movie that only rich people can watch.
Now I get, why I couldn’t understand Vin Diesel in pitch black
While watching this, I had an odd thought. Traditionally, women have been expected to use a higher, brighter, and what some say is gentler voice that is not as subject to vocal fry. But using a higher pitch speaking voice has a number of issues. One is the ability to be heard by those with hearing loss. My grandfather was quite hard of hearing. If I used what we jokingly called a "kid voice", he inevitably could not hear me as well. So I spoke lower and slower which tended to manifest some fry even as a kid. Now that I'm a professional adult woman in a medical field (hospital pharmacist) I need to interact with others. I naturally have a low voice anyway (I sing tenor), but speaking with a lower voice rather than a higher pitched one has different results. A lower voice will, for good or ill, get different results from people. I'm seen as more knowledgeable when I use a deeper tone. And the deeper tone comes with some fry if I am also speaking more quietly. Using a "lecture hall/stage voice" as if I were acting or singing sans microphone, has a lot less fry for me even in my natural lower register, but who speaks like that normally?
We can also use my daughter's example. When my younger one uses a higher pitched voice in her math class (where is is taking 8th grade prealgebra in 6th grade) or at her robotics team practice, the boys tease her for being a girl and not knowing as much, despite the fact that she has a higher grade in the class than they do. If she uses a lower pitched voice that tends toward a bit of fry, they take her seriously. She is 11!
I have smoked for 20 years, unfortunately, and my entire voice sounds like this 😞
@@stephanipeloquin4631fat rip. All that cancer but none of the benefits 😢
I totally was wondering about this, with women using vocal fry. I thought about women competing with men, and what if this has inadvertently made them lower their voice, especially at the end of phrases, like, bam. By competing, I mean, women are CEOs now, and they're kind of in a man's world, where low voices are taken more seriously. It would be interesting to see how much "fry" women CEOs have, and those who don't.
I’m sorry to hear your daughter is dealing with this level of sexism at 11!! Who is telling these boys that their female peers can’t do math or robotics and suggesting high-pitched voices are a sign of weakness? (ie femininity = weakness). Can’t we all appreciate differences and abilities in one another without feeing threatened?
@@limespider8 I don't think so, I think it's human nature - even if the "sexism thing" were to be stomped out some other "thing" would rise to replace it...humans are incapable of creating utopia, no matter how smart we think we are, evidenced by thousands of years of history. My truth source is God: Jeremiah 17: "9“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it? 10“I, the LORD, search the heart; I test the mind, Even to give to each man according to his ways, According to the results of his deeds."
Thankfully I look to God to know my true worth. Not society. God is my rock and salvation. Human society is built on sand, constantly shifting and and sinking and not good for growth. ❤️
I pray for all children and what they have to deal with these days.
for the sample of 19:30 - 19:51 it is also good to note that the man gives the viewer a very genuine and respectful look, while the woman looks almost with a sense of disdain. anything even remotely considered to be posh can basically become annoying when people try hard as opposed to not trying at all.
Thank you. This was very interesting, well researched and presented. I'm glad CZcams suggested this video to me
As a voiceover director, vocal fry is most annoying when the actor doesn't know they're doing it and can't stop. It's especially annoying when it's a man who's using it to sound like they have a deeper voice.
Also, as a voice actor myself, I'm in the "vocal fry envy" club, because I can't do it to save my life. Sometimes it's appropriate for a specific character, and I'm not able to utilize the technique! 😅
Can you do a Lurch? From the original 60s Addams Family? You might start there.
@@VesnaVK It's not a matter of not knowing how to do it. In fact, I can use vocal fry for the first 10 or 15 minutes after I wake up in the morning. But once my voice is warmed up, it's gone. 😆
@@AlexWalkerSmith interesting. I can do it at will anytime, I think. I wonder how come the difference.
I absolutely detest vocal fry. It is like fingernails scraping down a chalkboard annoying.
Lil Wayne does it. Goes for the deeper voice effect hahahhaa.
This video actually helped me normalize something about my voice that's always bothered me: when I speak louder (to be heard, since people tend to interrupt me; one of the youngest kids in a big family) my voice tends to be a bit rougher, almost deep. I first noticed this when I was like 5 and I thought I sounded like a man. This has been a source of distress for me ever since. I HATE how my voice sounds. Hearing myself in recordings makes me extremely uncomfortable. But this video helped me realize that it's just a normal aspect of my voice and not a flaw.
Ahh that sucks to have felt so bad about your own voice! I'm glad the video helped you 🫂
You can never hear your own voice as others hear it (unless you listen to a recording of it) because *you* hear your voice both through the air and through the bone conduction of your face. Others only hear it through the air. Also, high pitched sound elements from your voice are attenuated to *your* ears because they are far more directional than low pitched sounds. But others hear those higher frequencies more loudly!
Adding to what @ronvanwegen already pointed out:
Most people don't like the sound of their voice from recordings or at least prefer how they hear themselves directly. It's perfectly normal.
@@ronvanwegen but she was bothered by the deepness of her voice, not the high parts. so that might be a different thing
Interestingly enough, I have no problem with vocal fry under most circumstances. Except when it is being exaggerated, or is all of the speech. But even then, a friend of mine who has always had what I would call vocal fry, doesn't really bother me because it is more natural. There is a difference somehow that I can't really put my finger on between a natural form of vocal fry versus the affected type... It would be interesting to find more examples and research on when it actually bothers people and when it doesn't. For example it didn't bother me at all the example of the woman talking about the Wi-Fi. But it did in the skit, or the Kardashians. And what's interesting is I wasn't actually watching the video, I was only listening to the video, and I only realized that they were the Kardashians when it was mentioned in the video because I don't actually listen to them normally. So I suspect that it wouldn't have bothered me at all to have heard you speak even though it bothers you or did in the past
I'm in my early 50s, and I find that when I talk with younger people for an extended period, I tend to pick up a bit of the "uptalk". I naturally have a deep voice, so when I'm teying to sound more polite and less assertive (which is sometimes misinterpreted as aggession), I find myself using more uptalk.
Speaking for myself, I tend to notice my vocal fry happening if Im not supporting my voice properly, which often happens when I'm tired or when I'm speaking softly.
This is my first time visiting your channel. I’ve always been interested in language, so when this video showed up, I clicked the button. I’m very glad that I did!
The first advertisement had a man speaking with a VERY creaky voice. Continuously. I found his voice so irritating, it made me hold my breath. I could hardly wait for the countdown so that I could skip the ad. I don’t think that I’ve noticed creaky voice before. Now I can’t unhear it.
I had noticed the up talking for a while. It would make me a bit angry, wondering why the person speaking kept asking me questions or asking for my permission. Thanks to you, I realize that it is a speech pattern. I’ll have more patience……. but I don’t know about creaky voice 😅
Good to meet you Dr. Lindsey. New subscriber
My theory about the annoyance factor is that since vocal fry sounds like it comes from the very back/bottom of a person's throat, and the majority of women have higher-pitched voices, the clear pitch change from one to the other is what makes it sound intentional, affected, and annoying. Whereas, a lower-voiced woman or in male speakers, there is much less pitch-variation when switching from normal voice to fry voice so it barely registers on our mental radar. Regardless, I find the whole subject fascinating!
My theory is people have been told that it's hated so they adopt that behaviour. Most people think the same as the screens they watch tell them.
Muahah, you should hear me when I switch back and forth between my alto and bass registers. Always makes people do a double take even if I don't add any fry. If I add subharmonics I can reliably get down to G-0, and I can hit C-1 reliably with a clean chest voice.
In a lot of people it IS intentional. How else do you explain the fact that so many only started over-using it as adults?
@@iunnox666 Nah, that like saying people do not like fingernails on a chalkboard because they were told that it's annoying.
@@SolutionsWithin What?? He never said it was always an intentional decision. If anything he said the opposite, pointing out how it shows up in other languages and how we dont even notice men doing it.
I always associated vocal fry with running out of breath. When I played the trumpet and I would run out of breath I would often do similar things to the flow of air that would cause a creaky voice. I feel that if you ask someone who does not have vocal fry to speak for a very long time without taking a new breath you will hear it. People can you vocal fry in order to use less air volume to speak, as it takes a lot of air to avoid the transition in glottal stops (you use air to keep the vocal folds completely separated).
I don't think it has anything to do with running out of breath, as it appears even at the end of short sentences. It's a tactic to make the speaker sound confident in what they are saying, even slightly arrogant. "Frying" the end of the thought also creates less opportunity for anyone to talk over them.
@@giovanna722 well I do, I only notice this change in my voice when I'm speaking too fast, getting out of breath and wanting to keep talking.
As mentioned, vocal fry is very efficient compared to breathy voice.
Thank for for this, kinda. I repeated the word "yes" over and over again until I ran out of breath, and then still kept going until I physically couldn't anymore. It wasn't very fun haha, but yes my voice did start doing that near the end.
@@giovanna722 Well, your central argument here is that vocal fry is an affectation, not a result of an adaptation to the literal energetics and physics of controlling your vocal cords. In order to adequately argue your "intentionality" case against the "physics" case, you would need to provide, for lack of a better term, rigorously PROVE that someone is intentionally using vocal fry when they could, and are more easily capable of, doing otherwise. A tall order to be sure.
But you definitely can't argue the case of someone else's intentions by declaration because you can't read minds.
I just thought this was how people talked. Some of the examples you give are things I would never have noticed if it hadn't been first defined and then pointed out to me.
As a singer and linguist, I applaud these videos which are fascinating. Thank you.
Thank you, I really appreciate it.
Man… that was literally the smoothest ad transition I’ve ever seen.
I thought the same thing! Lol
Sucked me in.
I know right!
I'm a native Spanish speaker that learned English at school, and I never had creaky voice, until I started to learn Mandarin, which is a tonal language, and one of it's tones is called "falling rising tone" (third tone), which is actually more frequently pronounced as a low pitch tone. The thing is that in the process of learning more and more Chinese, my pronunciation in other languages also had that "3rd tone influence" in the form of a creaky voice.
So, as presented in this video, I also think people that say that "creaky voice can be detrimental to your throat" don't realize that there's a lot of tonal languages that literally require you to do it so that you can me understood.
I mean, have they ever heard the ã tone in northern Vietnamese? To me sounds like a combination between creaky voice and a glottal stop, but ppl use it all the time to speak.
Yeah, the ã tone like in ngã is creaky and has a glottal stop. I was always so focused on the latter, that I didn't notice the former.
Wow, I never thought about it, but I use vocal fry in Chinese as well! That's coming from English, where I've used it since my teenagehood. Interesting.
They were talking about people who STAY in vocal fry, to which the response is, Finnish people.
Ohhh yes and unfortunately it destroys the vocal chords.. ever noticed how unhealthy female voices sound in Vietnamese speakers become with age?
@@juliaagrippina917 - Is that actually the norm? or actually related? what about elderly Finnish people? I can't imagine all their voiced are screwed in their old age.
Here in New Zealand it is rife amongst teenage girls and young women. It seems more noticeable because generally our accent is softer than the american accent. I nick-named it the "croaky voice syndrome". It is usually accompanied with a tapering off in the volume as the sentence ends.
These edits are firrre!! Loved this
This made me realize why I've hated my own voice for so long I feel like I always sound bored. Thank you, that's a 30 year burden off my head
It's interesting how my voice sounds equally annoying to many people and it's not cause of vocal fry, but they did tell my I sound "bored/tired" all the time (which I kinda am kek)
And that is why people hate the sound... not all this attempt to paint everybody as sexists like the creator is so eager to do.
@@thomgizziz what are you basing this statement off of? Have you studied this? Do you have extensive training in linguistics? Because the guy in the video does, and he cites a paper in a peer reviewed journal to make his point.
If all you have to back up what you’re saying is your own experience and some knee jerk reaction to anyone saying that sexism exists, excuse me for putting a little more stock in Dr. Lindsay’s evaluation.
Don’t worry though, you’ve adequately displayed your teams colors. I have to imagine this was the real purpose behind this comment because it certainly doesn’t have any other value.
@@nathanjohnson9715 This comment is essentially one big appeal to authority. Having extensive training in linguistics does not give credence to an opinion about how particular social groups are perceived by their tone of voice, because that has very little to do with linguistics. (The only part of this argument which relates to linguistics is the phenomenon that is vocal fry in the English language and not how it is an example of sexism.) It seems that people who are inadequate to explain their reasoning will point at an authority or "peer revealed journal" as if that is supposed to prove the other person wrong, but method adherents fail to recognize that peer-reviewed studies are nothing more than a source of information, none of which can go without bias, from which an individual may draw their conclusion.
And to clarify the obvious: nobody cares who "you put stock in." This is a comments section and if you are unwilling to consider the other commentator's position then you would do well to refrain from posting altogether.
@@irixperson so much to say here. First off, just do a google search for sociolinguistics. This kind of thing is exactly what sociolinguists study and write papers about all day, and it’s exactly what the stated paper is about. If you trust random CZcams comments over professionals, that’s your business, but I don’t. It’s not an appeal to authority if the authority figure is an expert in the field being discussed. The fact that you don’t know what linguists do, or how big the field is is just more evidence that your opinion on the matter is less than worthless.
Second, no, I don’t need to seriously consider every dumbass opinion I hear. If someone tells me the world is flat, I don’t need to go into space to tell them they’re wrong.
Third, I’m still waiting for some sort of a methodology by which the person I responded to came up with the nonsense they vomited onto my CZcams feed. I didn’t see one. If you have one, show your work. If not, I have better things to do than continuing this conversation.
If you ever decide to do a follow up on this you may want to ask a voice pathologist who works with singers their opinion! At least among the low-bass community it is generally acknowledged that frequently practicing fry is actually GOOD for your voice and one of the best/only ways to extend your range. Being extremely proficient/practiced in vocal fry is also basically a prerequisite for a technique used by some bassists called "subharmonics" which essentially ARE fry, but can sound if anything LESS creaky than "chest voice" for the same given note. (See JD Sumner slides versus octave drops.)
Super interesting. Didn’t know but it makes sense. It’s adjacent to throat singing
Maybe for a si ger it might make sense.
But for the general public? No thank you. Immagine attend lectures where lecturer are non stop talking like this?? Annyoing to the point you stop paying attention to the contents...
@@inspiredbubbles0304 Very true! It should probably be noted that just about every use of fry in the video was basically "fry only"; there was no chest voice "on top of it" right? In singing the opposite generally holds. The "growl" you associate with a rock singer? That's fry. In just about all cases these days. Metal even more so if anything. The "fry" that bassists are "supposed to practice" would likely sound a lot more like "Mongolian Throat Singing" to you than what most of the people in the video were using... but mechanically it's just as much "pure fry" as what they're doing. Just far, far less erratic at the vocal folds.
Somewhat ironically this is SO prevalent in singing that the subharmonic technique can go completely undiscovered even for many professional bassists because the way it's achieved is essentially by creating a "break" at the transition you've been training the whole time to blend.
@@inspiredbubbles0304Exactly! One of my favorite CZcamsrs is a molecular biologist... super interesting guy but the vocal fry kills me. I want to yell at the screen for him to sit up straight and use his diaphragm! (I think he's trying to tone himself down to match the quieter tone of his partner or be 'less threatening?)The other examples I see in real life are women who are trying to mimic emotion to elicit sympathy. Yuck.
Absolutely correct. Im a singer and when you combine the 3-4 biological pathways for harnessing and projecting the voice, adding a well practiced lower register in the vocal cords, among other mechanism to prodouce and project lower frequency sounds, can be heard and goes a long way in singing and creating a nice full voice. It also helps develop control over the vocal cords as it takes more effort/power to control the vocal cords in a useful way when they are vibrating at a lower frequency.
Thank you. I was curious about motive or intention. This explained the phenomenon very well.
As a singer, one point I was surprised not to hear in the discussion of male vs female vocal fry is how the difference in pitch between male and female voices changes the frequency of the 'fry'. Vocal fry is done near the bottom end of one's voice (frequency of flap vibrations equating to pitch after all) and so if I, a bass singer, try to talk in vocal fry it ends up so deep it's inaudible in a noisy context. Howevera soprano or metzo voice talking in vocal fry still has the main tonal component of the fry in the center of the range of human speech. That would be my guess as to why women are 'better' at fry then men generally.
I keep being amazed just how hilarious you can be while also being kinda laid-back and also still so educational
British humor - an acquired taste.
I've spent a number of years in broadcasting and audiobook narration and what I've noticed with a lot of men who try book narration especially, is that they are attempting to artificially force their voice into a deeper register in order to sound lower and more resonant, and they use glottal or vocal fry (also known as glottal pulse) to accomplish that. A deeper voice tends to register with the listener as more authoritative, but the problem they face is that they focus more on artificially deepening their voice rather than placing emphasis where it belongs, on delivery, which is vastly more important.
And that’s also an acting skill
I cast voice actors for video games etc.. An authentic voice is sometimes hard to find among "professional" actors. 🙄
That reminds me of charles martinet the voice actor of mario, who was told in an audition that "he sounded the most like goofy out of all of them" but he didn't get the job because "he wasn't goofy". Likely his delivery was off because he focused too much on sounding just right
I have a physical disability that has a mild effect on my speech although it should be immediately recognizable by any English speaking speech pathologist. It is seldom recognized by anyone else. This video goes a long way in explaining some of the extreme hostility to my voice that I have experienced! I speak with noticeably more vocal fry than is typical. Mystery solved after only 68 years. Thank you.
I love vocal fry. Something approaching an ASMR trigger for me. Which is interesting since it seems there is a close correlation between things which trigger ASMR in people who experience it and sounds which irritate those who don't.
I think female vocal fry is easier to hear because it happens with the voice at a higher pitch, but it still has components that are about as low in frequency (the oscillation where you can hear individual "clicks" or whatever they should be called). I think vocal fry blends in better with the low frequencies it happens at in men, which are also frequencies that people have more difficulty making out details in. (For example, in the logarithmic scale common in music at least, humans have less frequency resolution with lower pitches, instead apparently judging pitch more linearly for low pitches. Also, it's pretty intuitive why time resolution is lower or difficult to get high with lower frequencies, since the waves are longer individually.)
I was also going to comment about this. I feel like the reason people have more of a problem with women doing vocal fry is because of how more noticeable it is. Because of its so noticeable it can become more irritating especially if they actually have an attitude behind it.
@@leorobin832 "An attitude" is a really vague thing to say.
You took the words out of my mouth!
Also, burping and other unpleasant bodily sounds are low frequency that can remind me of fry.
Also, how did you get through this whole meme video without the Miley Cyrus clip?
Plus I think it can be more annoying because we associate deep sound with manliness. So it sounds really off when females do it. It is like when some gay men really trying to speak in that feminine but really just pretentious way.
@@leorobin832 You think men and women do this at comparable rates? I seriously doubt that. There's a reason the term "Valley Girl" was used and then discarded: it became pointless when all young women began to talk this way. Vocal fry espeically combined with "question mark voice" is very female skewed in the United States. I make this claim with no scientific evidence to back it up other than the fact that I have ears and I live on earth.
Thanks so much for a great talk! I'm a retired speech therapist. I'm surprised that one thing you didn't mention is how the natural pitch differences between men and women play into the phenomenon of vocal fry. Is reached at the very bottom of one's pitch range--below it, actually, since it's the point at which the individual cannot maintain true phonation. The female pitch range averages about an octave above men's. Females are more likely to lower their pitch toward a male's level, especially in business and professional environments, and are therefore more prone to vocal fry. To the extent that a male might try to elevate his stature by lowering his pitch, vocal fry becomes more likely. In the clip where you alternated between the man and woman reciting the Gettysburg address, I was struck by how close their general vocal pitches were. Finally, I think vocal fry is more noticeable in female voices because of the pitch factor, whereas George Sanders, say, who has a deep voice even for a male, has a fry that sounds almost like a natural extension of his low range.
Excellent comment. I was surprised he didn’t address these aspects too. He seemed more interested in de-stigmatizing vocal fry than addressing why people are psychologically drawn to do it. I think you have to make people conscious of the latter to address the former.
I really appreciate this comment!!! I found it somewhat offensive to associate my overall intuitive annoyance upon hearing females with high pitched voices using „up talk“ or „creaky voices“ with some form of „sexism“!
We humans surely have an intuitive (what I would call) „musical sensibility“ …and some of us just find this way of speaking by especially females, for good reason, just plain super annoying!!! That’s all!! 🤷🏻♀️
@@ritahenderson6771 Thank you for your comment! I agree about "musical sensibility." It is really a shame that newscasters and other professionals whose voices are central to their work do not as a matter of course receive vocal training. It seems to have been standard many years ago. Among other benefits, women would feel less need to lower their pitches, as a fully developed voice at a more comfortable, higher pitch would sound more natural and more resonant. That in itself would distinguish it from a child's voice, which is otherwise in the same pitch range, more or less, as a woman's.
@@RegulusOrigin This doesn't necessarily make sense.
Finnish and the other languages that have vocal fry as a part of the language don't necessarily limit it to particularly low tones, you just hit a point where it becomes hard to not engage in focal fry as you get into your lower vocal capabilities because lowering the pitch is done by relaxing the vocal cords and by nature this creates a point where you cannot lower the pitch much without also introducing vocal fry.
So vocal fry isn't necessarily introduced only by being lower in pitch but it can be if you try to move to the far end of your vocal range where you can't make it go away.
So this can explain some vocal fry, and is where it's especially noticeable but for example the gentleman reading the gettysburg address did not get particularly low and many of the other male speakers were based on their tone and normal male capabilities where at times talking fairly high in the pitch range.
@@dozekarTheCursedThank you, that make sense.
Wow... this was a very fun thing to watch from start to end🤣
my college had a speaker who wasint even 30 and his voice to me sounded like a comic book like trying to fry all the way up everything. then I learned he was a director of some big department at spacex and yea now I coppy it for interviews. works great.
I was just going to watch for like 2 minutes to get some examples of this, but ended up watching the entire thing.
Lol...Same!
goodjob
Same I realized I kind of have it lol. Not nearly as nasally and obnoxiously as the Kardashian clan lol.
HaHa, I only made it 55 seconds, I also don't like that the people are often emulating the exact people that shouldn't be their role models.
- Also, it's bad for your vocal cords and has a tendency to cause "nodes."
@@donaldnelsonbarger2978maybe you should watch the whole video and you’d realise both point you just made are incorrect
This is an interesting concept to me because as a non-native speaker, I wasn't aware of this term or the negative associations that people seem to have with it, but I was aware the moment it was mentioned that this is something I could relate to. My speech always has this creaking voice quality to it, regardless of the language I'm speaking. I had also, on some level figured that this was because my voice had a low tone in general, and it was fascinating to find out that the negative associations are often paired with a higher tone.
Either way, your voice is your own. Don't let anyone bully you into trying to change it.
Yeah. German here, so not a native speaker, either. I'm not a subscriber and specifically clicked on the video, because I had never heard that term 'vocal fry' before. Nor was I aware, that it is a widespread issue (in the USA?).
I seem to only be able to hear it in extreme cases though. I kinda 'got' the case of the barista and her customer. They did sound annoying. But as for the examples at the beginning...nope. Did not sound unusual or annoying to me. Weird, huh? Maybe some people are more sensitive to it than others.
I did notice in the past, though, that American women tend to just overall speak in a higher voice than German women. So I must not be completely tone-deaf 🫣
The thing is I don't actually think actual vocal fry DOES generate that kind of reaction, at least not on it's own. It provokes a negative reaction when paired with other attributes of speech, in particular how syllables are emphasized (valley girl talk).
I think the majority of (non-linguists) complaining about it don't - as per the video - even really understand what it is, so we can't trust them to properly identify what they find annoying, vs. just tossing out a term. And I think Dr. Lindsey had some additional motives with his conclusion that it was all down to sexism (an explanation I would emphasize blithely ignores some very real negative stereotypes around the British male examples)
Ppppp
When we were children we used the to speak to each other in a Deep croaky voice by breathing in slowly as we spoke. Essentially it was entire sentences in what you are calling vocal fry, so perhaps in the example you have here the people are breathing out much softer at the end of their sentences.
great video! likead nad subscribed. I stumbled across it whej I should've been working and I do not regret it. Keep up the good work.
Oh no as a Finn I started sweating when Finland was mentioned.
Don't worry. Everyone loves Finland and Finns. Even Russia. They love you so much, they can't stop wanting to own you. 😂
I think it's fairly universal to find the sound of the Finnish language beautiful, at least amongst Europeans.
you are really one unique individual with unique opinions
Is it that because you watched this video in sauna?
Cool talent? Annoying!
@@andrzejsamorzewski146 🤣🤣🤣
As a English 2nd Language speaker, I never noticed vocal fry before. Now that you mentioned it and blast through plenties of extreme examples I can't unhear it anymore 😂😂
It only gets worse.
I noticed it but never thought much of it, I thought of it just as "influencer speech".
@@pukovnikklefeld mostly it's just that, a kind of mannerism, so they feel smart and interesting... like thousands others.
Same here!
I, too, speak English as a secondary language. I believed the sickly sounding creak in the voice was an American woman vocalisation because they mistakenly thought it sounds sexy. However, I hear it in all manner of females that utilise English, except it is slightly softer in non-Americans. The males do it as well, but often just really old men. The numbers of young men doing it are, unfortunately, climbing. Being taught English in the British manner, I had an unintentional linguistic defect of saying words that ended with an, "ah," with a, "er," sound. I was saying, "lavar, salivar, dramar, iguanar." This is the way the teacher sounded for the classes I took. I emulated incorrect language patterns. But, I made efforts to correct the defect. There is no, "er," at the end of words ending in, "ah," nor vocal creak in my English. The creak was never adopted and the, "er," was deleted.
That was some great editing!
I really resent the assertion that a vocal fry is deliberate. I've had it since my mid-teens and even if I try to consciously not do it, I still do it. I'm British, btw.
Edit: I'm half Finnish, so maybe that explains it! 😂
You somehow awakened an annoyance I didn’t know I had within a minute of this video starting. I am impressed
Yea Im 41 seconds in and clicking away. I think Ive heard all I need to hear. 😂
Both you and the other person should really watch the whole video.
@@maynardburgerNot really, that video was quite the waste of time.
@@maynardburger Now it's even more annoying
I was skipping a lot of that video. Doesn't matter who's doing it, I can't stand that sound. Same reaction in me like nails on a chalkboard.
Know the sound. Did NOT know there was a term for it. It's impossible to unhear now. Thnx. lol.
Fascinating. Thanks for the deep and dispassionate treatment. 😊
My daughter and I both have an autoimmune disease that damages the esophagus. Both of us have vocal fry, but her's came on suddenly and dramatically. It drove her crazy, so she went to an ENT and had her vocal cords examined. They're inflamed, covered in polyps, and permanently damaged. This is now the way she talks and that will never end. Although I've never had my vocal cords specifically damaged, my esophagus is examined regularly and definitely has scarring, chronic inflammation, and even has an aneurism (like a 'bubble' in the wall). I have no doubt that this disease is what destroyed my ability to sing all those years ago.
I know that autoimmune disease is horribly underdiagnosed, but now I wonder if sudden onset of vocal fry could be an early symptom.
EOE?
That’s a husky voice and unintentional not the forced vocal fry
A victim, look! Pffft
Even with damage you can still benefit from vocal coaching. You both can learn proper ways of supporting and using the voice that work around the damage and don't damage it further,
@@claricestarling6510oh shut up. As if you would be able to tell the difference
You can literally feel the hundreds of hours of research that go into every one of these videos, thank you!
Fascinating, instructive and funny video, thank you !
I'm trying to think if this exists in French, I'll try to pay attention !
From a musical perspective, vocal fry is very useful for projection, expressing emotion and character, and cutting in a mix. Especially live, fry is almost wholly necessary in many settings to stand out from the instruments. It’s like timbre of the voice, interestingly it is very useful for speaking on the phone/video call, or over radio comms where audio data is compressed. Low frequencies are very muddy and unclear, but adding vocal fry in cleans up the audible message a lot. I get that the west coast accent can be annoying but the functional benefit, I believe, forgives the passive irritation.
Something just clicked in my brain. I'm autistic, which - in verbal communication - results in relatively flat affect. I also have quite a bit of vocal fry naturally. And I'm well studied on a great many topics and love sharing knowledge with people. People used to think of me as some pompous asshole who thinks he's better than everyone for most of my childhood and teen years and even sometimes throughout my adult life so far. It just occured to me when you were talking about the psychological implications in the listeners' mind, that the vocal fry added to the "know-it-all" image when I was younger and as I grow older and better at communicating not just on the rational plane but also the emotional and interpersonal ones, it's working to my benefit more and more as people interpret wisdom into it.
Very interesting video I randomly stumbled upon there, thank you!
Count the number of "I"s in every utterance. Replace with "you" when possible.
@@AstroGremlinAmericanyou're right, that's a really important detail. Reformulating the story to make it appear more general and not so particular makes it more interesting for listeners. It makes everything more relatable and less like one is talking to himself
At least for those of us in the mild end of the spectrum, usually the only external difference from neurotypicals is that we take longer to learn this kind of thing, i.e. we end up evolving the "theory of mind" more slowly. But if you keep an open mind, the improvement never stops
me too! i have a deep voice because high voices hurt my ears lol
Thank you for sharing your experience! Not autistic but still can relate to being misunderstood!
As a Finn, I only noticed the vocal fry's prevalence in our speech when I was a teen listening to other teens. To me, it felt like they were trying to make their voice "lower" and "deeper", but failed to do so spectacularly. Of course, this was with boys who might've been insecure of their voice. But I also now hear it in women too, yet it's different from something like "Californian valley girl accent".
And most of the time, it just seems to be kind of this "ponderous" and "over-relaxed" tone. As in, you are currently so at ease that you are starting to get sleepy and thus not care as much as you probably should. Or, you could think of it as verbalizing something written in parenthesis (as like a side-note or a tangent).
I completely agree with using vocal fry in tangents. It makes the listener realize that it’s not as important as the main conversation!
Yes, as an expat (non English) I also perceive Finnish fry as an uber relaxed way of speech.
I live in Finland for 2 years now. Some of you guys fry so intensely it becomes unbearable to listen after 10 minutes, you bray like ass!
Älä nyt viitsi, totta toi proffa puhuu. Jos se on mein kielessä, se ei ole ainoo juttu mikä on päin vittua mein kielessä 😂
In English: basically tried to say that it's a feature in our language but doesn't really matter, since our language is kind of fd up anyway 😂
Best regards from Finland
@@golddigger8759yksi yritys taas alentaa Suomea. Olen asunut ulkomailla ja enimmäkseen jokainen kehui Suomen kieltä ja sen korotusta nätiksi.
If I ever catch myself doing this I will correct it . I’m also trying to not say “mmm” between every word I say . So far so good ❤
Personally, my mom deliberately taught me to avoid uptalk because it makes people sound unsure. As a little girl with a speech and spelling problem, people already had a hard time taking me seriously.
My sisters and I accidentally discovered vocal fry, while joking around--and called it "creepy syrup". Years later I found out it's an actual thing and now I'm learning much more about it. Thanks!!
Creepy syrup 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Women who speak this way cannot be taken seriously by me. You all are adult children to me.
@@EriPagesyou are human filth we get it.
@@EriPages What a strange thing to say
@@aryan_kumar greetings male feminist from India.
Top notch as usual. When the topic is related to some kind of prejudice people have towards one kind of speech or another, you do an excellent job of introducing and explaining the concept in a way that might reach the people that hold those views and have them think about why they have them.
I'd also like to add something regarding the "disinterested" perception of vocal fry. I'm American and I distinctly remember, around when my classmates and i started puberty, other boys would do this to try and artificially deepen their voices and to project a sense of cool aloofness. So perhaps there are adult men who still connect vocal fry with the the "cool guy" that they disliked in middle school who intentionally added that feature to his speech.
I met one of those boys 20 years later, and his voice still sounded fake, but all the people around him didn't know any different
What prejudice is that?
@@WreckItRolfe In this case it would be that women who speak in this way are doing it intentionally to signal their indifference and so on.
I think, at least for the movie example, it wasn't the vocal fry alone, but the combination of the vocal fry and the, er, what I think of as "Valley Girl" affect. But maybe that was just used to reinforce the effect? It kind of seemed like either cheating or missing the point, TBH.
Yeah, everybody trying to sound strong and fierce and distinguished just like Shir Khan 😂😅😊
As a rock/metal fan, I'm mostly familar with vocal fry as a type of vocal distortion used by many vocalists in those musical styles. Never noticed it in normal speech before.
I absolutely love vocal fry. Don't really care if it's natural or fake, male or female, I simply love the sound. Maybe because it kinda reminds me of cats purring.
You really go the extra mile to educate people on the difference between facts and opinions, and from my limited experience, it is always an uphill battle. Another great video, Geoff!
As a trained singer, and a multi-instrumentalist. I do vocal fry because I tend to hear the baseline well when I sing.
The problem with uptalk? is that it keeps making people sound like they're asking questions? when they're not asking questions? because intonation? is used as a flag to indicate what is and isn't a question? and also where one complete thought ends? so when someone talks like that? they are slamming down hard on your question detector? when it's not a question? and they never give you a signal? that one complete thought has ended? which makes it hard to untangle everything. We need pauses. We need moments where we can say, "Ok, one complete thought has ended. I can set that thought aside and give my attention to the next one." If everything sounds like one thought? and there's no break? then it's like they keep shoving? and shoving? and shoving? more? and more? and more? into your brain? until you just plain shut down.
Aaaah make it stop. I could hear it all in uptalk voice.
@@IsraelpwnSame 🙉
The best way to handle someone like this: answer the statement like it’s a question and when they act confused “it sounded like you were asking me (relevant information here)”. Do this several times in the conversation.
No, it isn't that. The issue is that it sounds like it's something revelatory (ie they're saying something that should be illuminating), however it isn't. They're injecting luminosity in tone but failing to accompany it with anything remotely interesting. It's the speaker portraying an interest in what they're saying (and hence themselves) even when it has no value to the listener. It masquerades as a a generous way of communicating ("I'm saying something worth listening to") when it actually isn't.
Vocal fry is the opposite in a way. Whatever the explanation (and the video attempts to introduce alternative theories) it does signify a sense of superiority in the speaker. Like someone is reclining into the speech so much (because they're so adept at what they're doing and want to signal the same) that it's an effort for them to even speak to you.
Both are instances of having a lack of empathy for the listener so both rightly draw criticism.
@@sammyb1651Thank you for the best comment on this thread!
This was extremely informative.
For those who speak French, François Pérusse makes fun of vocal fry in a skit where the speaker keeps hesitating with uh, and uhm and errs and gets stuck on the fry tone until someone comments that someone forgot to shut off a lawn mower outside.😅
I am a non-native speaker of English and I find it difficult to produce vocal fry sounds. That aside, I've noticed that vocal fry seems to make speech less expressive, or, in other words, very monotonous, similar to the topics young people tend to talk about (like this or like that). I appreciate your breathy pronunciation for the way you exquisitely manipulate your voice. Speakers' diction seems to be affected by the dominance of fry sounds. Perhaps you should consider addressing this issue in your future videos. Looking forward to watching them.