What’s up with the smiley-voice?
We’ve all seen the smiley face. But you probably have also heard the disembodied smiley voice. Why are these ladies – and it always seems to be women, or at least female-sounding AI – so very very happy-happy?
I hear the smiley-voice in recorded announcements all over the place in stores. We’re offering this or that deal!!!!! We’re about to close in 15 minutes, so take your groceries to the checkout aisle!!! These voices have a built-in lilt that makes the speaker sound exceptionally amused in an extremely phony way.
Do you hear them, too? Do they drive you nuts, too?
NOTE: I can’t find examples on YouTube. If you can find one, please post a link in the comments.
I also see (hear) the opposite in TV ads…the announcer sounds like he or she (usually she) is on the edge of tears because the sleeping pill saved her marriage, or the people in Country X are starving, or the dogs in this country are freezing…
Yes, I hear the smiley voice in the supermarket all the time. Of course, although almost annoying, the smiley voice can also be inappropriate. I was in a supermarket shortly after the Indonesian tsunami in 2004 and the smiley voice was asking for donations to help the victims. But the way she said “tsunami” was altogether too friendly. It sounded like she was announcing a two for one sale on yogurt.
How about Billy Mays pitching OxiClean? Very irritating. When the TV ad comes on, they often boost the volume. I used to turn the volume down about 20dB, but even then it is incredibly annoying. Best to go with a full mute.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PU8ZxQj7eE
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Some of the people involved in financial TV news also feel the need to speak in a tone that constantly expresses the utmost urgency.
@ David Foster
These are often accompanied by slow, heart-tugging piano music…. 🙁
Both the female and male-sounding voiceovers for videos are like nails on a chalkboard to me at this point. They actually sound very pretentious and condescending. Today I actually asked an emerging podcaster/influencer if he could just narrate short videos in his own voice. I would rather hear a normal-sounding human voice – doesn’t have to be a great voice! – than something that sounds robotic.
“When the TV ad comes on, they often boost the volume.”
Won’t happen because the Media Industrial Complex wouldn’t allow it – they need the money which is why they bump the volume up for ads* – but there needs to be an added control button to TV remotes – the “Half Mute.”
When ads come on the volume goes up, so some of us press the mute button, then a few minutes later realize the sound doesn’t work. The Half Mute would cut the sound by 50% so we’d reduce the intrusion but still be aware of what’s on, and be able to carry on conversations.
* In actuality, the volume isn’t increased, it’s that the audio in the commercial is compressed, effectively limiting the normal, lower sounds, leaving only the – normal – louder sounds, so it sounds louder. Just as irritating, though, as increasing the volume.
Happy happy voice: If you’re having a true medical emergency….
Sounds even worse here in England where anyone wishing you “have a nice day” is viewed as far too cheery and probably subversive.
The grindingly upbeat tone of AI, along with the dreadful Australian rising tone at the end of the sentence is transforming spoken English. Plus the awful American phrases that are now everywhere, but this is probably not the place to step up to the plate about that.
However it is interesting to listen to people talking as recently as the 1980’s to hear how language changes. This is a natural part of language and the change is far more rapid than we realise.
If you want an intellectual approach there is a subject called Glottochronology that measures the changes in language against historical change. I studied it a little at University matching the expansion of Bantu people in Africa to the change in language. Absolutely fascinating.
But even though it changes I am not sure I want AI driving this. I can’t cope with England full of people with cheery, upbeat voices. We don’t have the weather for it.
Is the rising tone at the end of sentences Australian? I hear it often on American TV; women especially, with piercing high voices. I thought the rising tone at the end was for questions.
@Kate – listen to UK young people speak. Every statement seems to end in a rising tone – question or not. The theory is Australian soaps brought it here in the nineties. I have heard it argued that the Valley Girl’s California accent, as mocked by Frank Zappa, does the same thing.
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My personal bugaboo: “[statement of controversial opinion], right?” The “right” is barely acknowledged and is certainly not an actual inquiry about whether the listener agrees – it’s a “you do agree, self-evidently, because All Right-Thinking People do.” It’s a transition between the controversial opinion and the desired policy prescription or action.
Example: “Well, Trump is obviously guilty, right? So unfortunately we have to jump through all these legal hoops in order to blah blah blah…”
The smiley voice – “she” sounds as if “she’s” talking to a group of preschoolers. And “she” does a little glottal stop thing as if “she’s” swallowing a bit of the beginnings of a lot of words. I find it at least as grating as vocal fry. What I don’t understand is what focus groups actually liked it.
Kate and DCL, I too hate the aural question at the end of a sentence. At first when I heard it I was confused, then annoyed. I remember all those years ago that it came out of California. And I’m still annoyed.
Some current word usage’s drive me crazy and at the top of the list is the use of disrespect. I am just waiting for someone to ask me if I’m disrespecting them. My answer is, no you idiot I’m insulting you! I do know where this usage comes from and I understand why. It just drives me nuts.
funny you mention australia, there was a short lived series, time trax, that was filmed there in 1993, the conceit was the hero sent back through time to this point, has a digital companion, who guides him somewhat like Dean Stockwell in Quantum Leap played by the Australian actress Elizabeth Alexander,
JFM; DCL; Kate:
It’s called “uptalking” here.
Smiley voice, vocal fry, up talking…..
Irritating fads.
Shadow:
They actually sound very pretentious and condescending.
Especially the guy. They make him sound like he’s two stairs up the flight from you.
The Story of Film, Mark Cousins’ documentary series, was excellent, but Cousins’ constant “uptalking” was extremely painful for the ears. Cousins comes from Northern Ireland, so possibly uptalking has other origins than just Australia and Southern California. It wasn’t so much that his intonation rose at the end of every sentence. It rose at the end of every one of his many clauses, as though he was taking off into poetic revery or something, and didn’t come down at the end of the sentence.
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If I were going to the same supermarket every week and hearing the same cheery, smiley voice every week it might drive me around the bend too, but if I happen to go to a new store and hear such a voice, I don’t really mind it.
A bit OT, but reading a book about antisemitic white supremacist organizations in the 80s, the author said that they said that if a Jew said to you “Have a nice day,” it was code for “F— You!”
The supermarkets I patronize don’t talk to me on the intercom. They play annoying music, however.
they used to when they would serve samples, but the covid hysteria did away with that,
I agree with the fulmination against uptalking and all this, but my question for some time is: what does one do about these things? I have a coworker of whom I’m fond, for example, and have been working on him gently over the past year or so to try to reduce his glottal stop. But that’s one drop in the ocean, sadly.
Chat is good for stuff like this:
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Uptalk, also known as upspeak or high rising terminal, is a speech pattern where the speaker ends a statement with a rising intonation, similar to the intonation of a question. This manner of speaking has not always been as prevalent or recognized as it is today. Its emergence and widespread notice are relatively recent in the history of spoken language, primarily gaining attention in the late 20th century.
Origins and Recognition: Uptalk is often associated with the speech patterns of young people, particularly young women, and is believed to have originated in Australia or New Zealand in the 1960s or 1970s. It then became prominent in other English-speaking countries like the United States and the United Kingdom.
Huxley,
Since Chat explained it so well, … well then it is settled, … right? 🙂
Declarative sentences are supposed to carry a certain load of declaration. Uptalking it makes it sound as if the speaker isn’t sure.
What bothers me, to the extent this whole thing rates ‘bother”, is the internal glottal stop. Used to be sixth graders. Heard a professor in the bioogical sciences using it.
It’s “Mar” glop, beat, “In”. “Threat” glop beat “en”.
Vowels are, in my experience, an individual thing. There seems to be no subculture which pronounces “fast” and “have” as “fahst” and “hahve”. And onward through other uses of the short “a”.
Did some business with a woman who wanted us to sit at her dusk, and, yuss, the paperwork was complete.
Oligonicella? And Huxley?
So, yeah! Uptalk is, like, absolutely what we do! And, you know? Not only do we jack our sentences with this, like, verbal tic? But we also coat them with a thick layer of — [do the horrible sound here] vocal fry!
If we do it right, you are on the floor in a fetal position weeping in pain at this acoustic and semantic assault, and whatever we say stands unopposed.
Since Chat explained it so well, … well then it is settled, … right? ?
R2L
Sure. Unless Chat is making stuff up … again.
I have caught Chat a few times, though not on a question as straightforward as this. So I think we’re safe.
I kept journals from my 20s-50s. Eight years ago I read through them all. Comparing what I read to the way I remembered, I realized I had made a lot of stuff up.
See. My problem with Chat isn’t that I think it’s human; it’s that I’m not sure I am human either and not just a meat version of Chat.
huxley:
The BBC versus Chat.
It appears to me that the Salon is downvoting uptalking.
Right?
@Neo that BBC article is great and points to the big problem of mapping out languages and their development. There are so many influences on a language. With a networked culture it is impossible to predict where influences come from. But it was always thus. The Roman Empire went from Latin to Greek and each century produced its own variations on both.
The interesting question for me is what will be the effect of AI on English? Will it produce a standardised accepted global version – sounding like the cheery voices you describe. Or will it be something g more complex and dangerous?
Neo:
Knowing how much you like dance…
Are you familiar with an (apparently, AFAICS) movement called “Electroswing”?
It seems to have arisen in the last 10y or so, and generally involves some very very impressively energetic dance using mostly shufflesteps, but the better ones seem to more than just that…
The big one seems to be a German guy named Sven Otten, who also goes by “JustSomeMotion” or JSM.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdLa-vJjGnQmXy8KgBIqq8w
Here’s one that’s a good example, I think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtJct8nKjcc
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Another one who has impressed me in what little I’ve seen so far is Gabby David:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmLVlhkAuNoMvZepfAqzFJw
This video in particular is a pretty good example of her skills:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxM01o7G6kM
I wish I was 25, that I could try this stuff. Hell, I’d try it if I was just 40. 😀
}}} The supermarkets I patronize don’t talk to me on the intercom. They play annoying music, however.
Solution: Music on your phone plus a decent pair of headphones.
You don’t hear their garbage.
Also useful at stores where you don’t want to be bothered by sales people… Just ignore them completely (even if you hear them) — they will assume you can’t hear them, and walk away. It would be “rude” without the headphones, but if they think you can’t hear them, well, they aren’t going to assume you’re being rude.
}}} A bit OT, but reading a book about antisemitic white supremacist organizations in the 80s, the author said that they said that if a Jew said to you “Have a nice day,” it was code for “F— You!”
This is basically from a very old joke — my mother was telling it back in the 80s, so it predates that.
Her version had nothing to do with antisemitism, it was just the way a young, coarsely-raised girl, sent to finishing school, “corrected” her behavior. The girl said, “How nice” all the time. And of course, that was “code” for “Eph You.”
And THAT one mirrors a joke I learned in the early 1970s:
My own bet is someone made that antisemitic version up far more recently.
I don’t have a TV and meijers uses an actual human for announcements.