Mrs. Poff never mentioned this in the eighth grade.

PARTS OF SPEECH:

I have been pondering how to resolve my current puzzlement regarding a style of speech that does not seem to have any classification of any sort. I may be the only one who has noticed this particular irritant however here goes.

Have you ever noticed a news piece or an interview piece in which a young woman is asked her opinion. Her voice then drops a bit, she frowns a bit and replies in a serious voice that sounds earnest and gritty. Sounds a little like the woman in “Back to the Future” exhorting her family ...”come to dinnerrrrrrrrr.” only gritty.

I think if I have a label that identifies this sound it will smooth out the inner spasm that occurs whenever I hear that hapless young thing going for her five minutes of fame speaking.

As this is the age of the Internet I Googled a few things. I found a fascinating paper “Trends in Speaking Styles Resecearch”, which while it did not offer anything regarding my young-woman-speaking-seriously style I did find a number of fascinating big words. And in the fashion of Aunty Mame who told her nephew to make a list. Here is my list:

Geminate simplification: Wikipedia didn't like this until I wrote geminate. Turns out this is a long vowel.

Monopthongisation: Wikipedia didn't like this either and offered monopthong is another vowel sound.

In conclusion, I found the authors e-mail and sent off a query to France and I also found a professor emeritis in Finland who may or may not comment. Have a nice day!!