Vocal Fry: Why I’m Not Getting A Voice Coach

Science Diction

Science Friday and WNYC Studios

Friday, Society & Culture, Science, Origin, Culture, Words, History, Word, Language

4.8 • 610 Ratings

🗓️ 7 December 2021

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For decades, vocal fry lived a relatively quiet existence. It was known to linguists, speech pathologists and voice coaches, but everyday people didn’t pay much attention to it. But then in 2011, people started noticing it everywhere. So what happened? What is vocal fry? Why does host Johanna Mayer use it? What's her problem? And is it really that bad? Guest: Lisa Davidson is the chair of the Linguistics Department at NYU. Footnotes & Further Reading: Check out this article on young women as linguistic trendsetters. Read the full study from 2011. Learn more about people’s negative reactions to vocal fry. Credits: This episode was produced with Kevin McLean, along with Johanna Mayer. Elah Feder is our Editor and Senior Producer. Daniel Peterschmidt is our Composer, and they sound designed and mastered the episode. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everyone. I have a favor to ask. So Science Friday is actually a nonprofit, which means that we depend on donations to make things. That's how we get to make stuff like Science Diction. So if you can, please make a donation to Science Friday. You can do that at ScienceFriday.com
0:22.5	slash diction donate.
0:24.5	That's scienceprided.com slash diction donate.
0:28.3	Thank you.
0:29.5	We really appreciate it.
0:31.5	Okay, here's the episode.
0:33.6	I just heard your show for the first time.
0:36.1	It mentioned the words,
0:37.4	Cisogy and Cernipity.
0:39.7	I thought it was a great show,
0:41.4	but there was something about it.
0:44.2	It was like nails on a chalkboard.
0:46.8	The host's voice,
0:48.5	I can only describe it as,
0:50.9	it sounds like a cross between
0:52.4	vocal fry and a hint of valley girl.
0:57.5	It's just annoying.
0:59.2	It sounds like an affectation.
1:01.5	I hope she doesn't really naturally speak like that or hasn't conditioned herself to speak like that.
1:06.4	But it's something I've noticed that women of a certain age group do.
1:10.3	And it's just annoying as all hell.
1:15.0	Oh, hello. That would be me. You're talking about Johanna Mayer, host of science diction.
	...

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