Community Chat

[LTT1]

@Poodlepet2

Funny story about speed talking:

A friend called the Urgent Care for an appointment and was told to perform a "wet-chicken."

The girl on the phone was a fast-talking, valley girl and my friend asked her to repeat this three times.

When she arrived, she told the desk "I was told to say I am a wet chicken?" (Didn't make sense to her)

The receptionist laughed and said "Oh you mean a "WEB CHECK-IN!"

[Mistreatedbycs]

Great observation...how true!

All the words are so blurred together it is difficult to understand.

[Starpolisher]

---

@Mistreatedbycs wrote:

Great observation...how true!

All the words are so blurred together it is difficult to understand.

---

@on the bay, @Mistreatedbycs

Yes! and it always makes me turn the channell!!!

[chrystaltree]

I haven't noticed it.  Perhaps it's another thing that happens to some people as they age.  They get sensitive to sounds and think people are talking to loud, or too fast. 

[ALRATIBA]

@on the bay

Funny you should mention that .... just the other day I was watching a newscast online.  The woman had a regional accent (not Northeastern) ... she was speaking so fast, I had no idea what she was saying. She might as well have been speaking a foreign language.

[on the bay]

I enjoyed reading all the responses. Apparently just thinking about it all-I had to take a nap lol!

I am not talking about speed here though I don't like that either or toooo slow.

It's hard to explain but I can think of a few hosts that do it and so many women newscasters.

It is not the difference between performance vs non because not all do it-mostly women.

It is like a chant-no spaces between words like a humming of the sentence or if they took the words away it would sound like humming.It's not the speed , its the manner of humming the sentence. I think they think it sounds lilting or musical to them. So instead of saying words it's insteadofsayingwordsand add music to it with no spaces. They can be slow or fast.

I'm kind of wishing I hadn't taken speech classes in college. So I don't think its age when these things start to bother, its that the manner of speech is changing in annoying ways!

Listen to any dialogue from old movies to now and see how the affected almost English language, esp. from women  has changed to more clipped separate tones and now-speed, and the new one-this false performing humming of sentences!

I'm going into a cave now

[proudlyfromNJ]

Have never noticed the sing song, but have noticed speed talking. Not on tv, but with my nephew. He speed talks and sounds like he has a mouth full of marbles. A twenty something. Cannot understand a word.

[Pook]

I think it's because with the internet and fast spreading news, there is probably more news to report that has to be squeezed in a certain timeframe and the only way to achieve this is to talk fast.  I don't have a problem with it though.

[excpa]

Thank you.  I thought it was just me and another sign of aging.  I can't listen as fast as they talk.  And they seem to start in the middle of a sentence and get annoyed when I don't follow.  Especially the string of numbers.   Sometimes it's my zip code, or my phone number, or my date of birth.  But they don't say that...just the numbers.  Then the highly annoyed "Well, is that your zip code?"  

I don't want to talk on the phone anymore.

[on the bay]

---

@SaRina wrote:

on the bay said: "It is like a performance voice, that seems to appear more and more.'

--------------------------------

Well... news programs, talk shows, shopping channels are basically performances. They're not meant to be every day conversational like you or I talk with our friends. Newscasters, in particular, are under very precise time constraints to get the news in before each commercial break. Talk shows are just trying to sound exciting and hype the audience up. Shopping channels the same -- hype -- to get you in an excited shopping mood.

I wouldn't expect anything but, let's say, a drama on tv to sound more conversational.

---

@SaRina`

Yes, that is so true-the reasons for speed talking but I'm talking about the kind of humming of the words.

I do appreciate when all the above mentioned, newscasters etc. still speak clearly, ennunciate, don't talk too fast or too lilting-just a nice understandable tone and pace.