Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for January 27, 2019

Has Alex moved to Seattle?

Probably just visiting..

One problem I have with NPR is their preferred delivery. Their anchors all sound like librarians speaking in hushed tones so as not to disturb the walls or ceiling by echoing off them. Even golf announcers show more signs of life.

Well, it’s not valley speak and that’s a plus.

Here’s a fun game!

Listen to an NPR interview – ANY interview – and count the number of: “y’knows” – as in,

“Yesterday the president – y’know – called upon Congress to – y’know – . . . .”

Then, ask yourself if it is an improvement over:

“Yesterday the president – uh – called upon Congress to – uh – . . . .”

Finally, discuss how reading this comment – y’know – forever ruined your listening – y’know – experience with NPR.

;-)

How about all the conversations that start with “so…” Especially answers to questions. I used to be okay with “so…”, but now it really bugs me.

My personal gripe with junior engineers is, “Fair enough”. It goes something like this: “You don’t have the Volt-seconds balanced on this transformer, you’re going to drive it into saturation.” “Fair enough.” “It’s not fair, its physics! Do your job!”

In the 60’s it was man

Groovy, man! What a bitchin’ comic today fer sure. So, let’s go do brunch.

I’ve turned off NPR because of the vocal fry thing. It’s almost like fingernails on a chalkboard.

“Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me”, Trudeau’s feeling his age…And YES, “Like” is the Boomer’s equivalent to “23 Skidoo”, or “Oh, you kid…”

Since cell phones have totally destroyed the concept of vocal quality, I just try to pay attention to the content, not the delivery of vocal messages.

I rarely have the opportunity, anymore, to speak English on a daily basis. Perhaps, because of that, I’m more aware of, and irritated by “vocal fry”, “unspeak”, and the other atrocities that have found their way into the American vulgate.

Most of the time when I do have occasion to speak English now, it is to non-native speakers, who are just learning English, so I’m overly sensitive about clear speaking and correct vocabulary and grammar usage.

I can respect Trudeau’s wish just to do the Sunday strip. Selfishly, I wish he was skewering the World on a daily basis…

What always jumps out at me is the double use of the word “is”. “The thing is, is that….”

It’s weird, but before I knew what Vocal Fry was, it didn’t even register with me. But now, it is beginning to irritate me…

He still has his 60s portable radio. Far Out!

I accept vocal fry. It is the rising terminal that annoys me. (Maybe I should have said, “…annoys me?”

Sure. Yeahno, I totally agree.

Like, far out, man. When you are fly you let things go and don’t sweat the small stuff. I mean, as always, shi7 happens. You know?

Moon Unit Zappa,the original Valley Girl ;)

How about when people being interviewed open an answer with “It’s interesting.” Of course, it’s interesting. If the subject wasn’t interesting, they wouldn’t be getting interviewed.

It’s funny Trudeau has Alex say that upspeak is in the past, it’s more common now than ever and is used with vocal fry.

Nice to have Trudeau take a break from Trump, he’s so irritated with him that he forgot how to be funny about him.

Furthermore, I’m tired of hearing about someone’s “journey” unless it’s really about – y’know – travelling.

Yeah, that vocal fry thing is very annoying.

The thing that bothers me most is an announcer asking a question and immediately following the question mark with the word “because” and then they keep right on talking.

Whoa, who’s the baby? Too little to be one of the twins!

Finally, common ground with Doonesbury. Speak normally people. Your vocal fry and upspeak is such a ridiculous affectation. You are virtue signaling your phony compassion and feigned gentleness. Thinking people are not fooled.

And when did Alex take the beads out of her hair?

Today’s strip to speak of someone or something other than Trump, was brought to you by the great folks of NPR!

Let us pause a moment and appreciate the skill it takes to create an illusion of auditory input using a purely visual medium.

Along with those two vastly irritating fads of speech, I found a personal oddity of speech. Anyone under 40 calls me “Joanne”. My name is Joan. I correct them every time. I guess none of the offenders heard of Joan Crawford. Joan of Arc….O add to the problem a few Joans started pronouncing their name “Joanne”. Sigh…

Ah yes, NPR: Grammatical errors, mispronunciations, and vocal fry, among other annoyances, have me muttering. But what really makes them insufferable to me is the artificially exaggerated intonation/inflection, sing-song-y, patronizing way of speaking, which makes it sound like they are talking to an audience of five year olds. At some point I just shut it off.

I always thought that they tried to sound like a college campus ratio station with the muffled sound, like they couldn’t afford any production values beyond a noise deadening shroud over the microphone. I call it ‘false humility’.

Is this pick on NPR day? It seems to me NPR is a better choice than many other radio stations out there. I think that is especially true if you are talking about radio programs which are free to the public and don’t require a paid subscription. So yes, if we are picking on NPR, I would ask, if NPR stinks, compared to what? I think the critics here are taking some of the qualities that this particular Doonesbury character is making fun of and making it into something that is much worse than what he is stating in this comic strip. I remember Doonesbury once criticizing the speech patterns of a news anchor on a certain large network and I don’t remember such an uproar over it. The anchor kept referring to various reporters as “our (name of network) own so and so” and it went on and on. I thought it was kind of a nothing burger to worry about. They are probably told that they have to refer a few times during the broadcast to the name of the network, as a reminder of the network. Whatever. NPR has probably evolved over the years as the rest of our society has also evolved, in an attempt to be a bit more informal and inclusive of others. Language itself changes over time, what is accepted in one era is not accepted in another.

Fry vocal font.

Was I the only one to notice that Alex was carrying a NEW baby? There’s a lot going on on weekdays, it would seem.

When you blow up the small fry you stop talking about the important things.

Did I miss Alex having another kid?

“Exactly.” As in, “Exactly when did you have lunch today?”

You’d think with the massive trove of debris that the Tronald has wrought, that Trudeau would have more fun on his Sundays. I’m hugely disappointed. HUGELY!

I like the skewering of trump here too but I guess Trudeau needs a respite from him once in a while.

Ok, at the tail end here, my irritant is “I reached out to him so he could reach out to his team to see if…”

What’s wrong with “I called him to contact his team…”?

I never heard of “vocal fry”.

If you’re not particularly fond of a speaker and want to mess up their talk, pick on one word whisker, wait for the fourth time they say “like”, “so”, “uh” or “you know” and start counting out loud. Start softly, then build up the volume. When the penny drops, someone says, “Who had 14?” and get someone to respond.

Oh dear. Well, I once had someone come in to evaluate me on the spur of the moment while giving a lesson. Because she was there, I was nervous. She said I said OK 13 times. I didn’t know what to say to that. OK?

YES, YES, YES, A THOUSAND TIMES, YES. Vocal fry drives me out of my gourd. My newest coworkers sound like Kardashians and it makes me want to stick a fork in my eye.