What's this new way of ending spoken sentences on an upbeat?

[grumpyduck]

I don't know how to describe it, but it's like asking a question or asking for a reply.

I see it all the time here in the Bay Area. Drives me nuts.

[AllaN01Bear]

1. it has been going on for several years and it drives me nuts too also.

the other one that drives me crazy is using the letter n in front of words . have no example for you. have a grand day. another peve is the missspelling and missuse of the pronoun to and or too. and quiet as spellt like quite . the quite hours are from 0800 to 10 pm.

[Phoenix61]

2. It is asking for affirmation that the speaker is right.

Annoys the hell out of me too. If you want my opinion, just ask for it.

[Arne]

3. Valley Girl style?

[C_U_L8R]

4. Baskin Johns

[Sanity Claws]

5. It is a way of asking for agreement.

Like adding "right?" at the of a sentence. I think that is what I heard. Have you noticed whether it is more common among women than men?

What gets me is the voice that comes from the back of the voice and makes the voice croaky. There is a specific term for this but I can't recall it now.

[bbernardini]

8. Vocal fry. nt

[Sanity Claws]

12. That's it!

I wonder if it fries the vocal cords.

[RockRaven]

9. I think the term you are referring to is "vocal fry"

[grumpyduck]

10. I didn't want to bring it up,

but out here I've noticed it far more common among women.

[targetpractice]

31. Young women & teenage girls in populations are usually the first to introduce...

...and drive dialect deviations, accents, and linguistic styles... that are accepted over time. The vocal fry is a good example.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/science/young-women-often-trendsetters-in-vocal-patterns.html

[bbernardini]

6. It's commonly known as "upspeak".

There's a fancier name for it that I forget.

[Irish_Dem]

7. It is called Upspeak or Upward Inflection and is so annoying.

Edited to add:

My daughter took a college linguistics class a couple of years ago and the professor said that language is always evolving and changing. Common usage may sound odd in the beginning, but then becomes the norm.

I hope Upspeak is just a fad, but who knows???

[soothsayer]

15. I heard myself do it recently in a moment of stress

I was mortified

[Irish_Dem]

17. You must be hanging out too much with the kids. :)

My daughter is very smart and has several degrees, one a graduate science degree.
She called me last year, she had to mail a real letter, and she asked me where she might
be able to buy a stamp.

I was floored and mortified, I must have failed at parenting.

I had to explain the US post office to her and where it is located.
She can buy a stamp and mail a letter there.

[femmocrat]

11. I don't hear it much in PA.

What I find annoying though is people starting every answer with “So...”. I heard some health professional on TV a couple of nights ago who started every reply that way as if she had to collect her thoughts first. Come prepared!

[grumpyduck]

13. Yeah, a lot of people here do that too.

[Liberal and Proud]

25. So?

I’ve noticed a lot of guests on the cable shows will begin with “so.” I think they’re just gathering their thoughts before answering the question/s put to them.

[Fla Dem]

14. That's nothing new. I first noticed it in younger women years ago.

It was a thing at the time, haven't heard it so much in a while. Thought it made the women sound somewhat phoney. or if they were trying to sound "with it".

[Irish_Dem]

18. Right, to my ear it sounds fake and put on.

But what do I know.

[ZenDem]

19. I work with a woman that does that.

She's very condescending. She speaks to everyone like she would to a toddler. Her sentences all seem to be asking, "Are you listening?", "Do I need to speak slower?", "Are you smart enough to understand my great intelligence?" She stopped talking to me that way when I returned the favor, slightly exaggerated. Heh...

[MichaelSoE]

20. Canadians have been doing it for years, eh!?

[rurallib]

22. yeah, eh?

[EarlG]

21. If you think that's weird, my 12-year-old son and his online buddies

have now taken to speaking the words "question mark" at the end of a question.

So I will frequently hear things like, "Does anyone want to play Fortnite question mark?" They still go up at the end of the sentence, except they now also speak the words "question mark" out loud.

What the hell is wrong with these kids today question mark?

[rurallib]

24. reminds me of the old Victor Borge routine "Phonetic Punctuation"

the actual reading starts at @ 2:10, but you may want the upfront explanation:

[grumpyduck]

26. That guy could have made people roll in the aisles

by reading a phone book.

[CottonBear]

39. I have an 11 year old son who plays Fortnite with his online friends.

It’s really fun to listen to him playing. Their battle chatter is filled with unique vocabulary. They also speak in memes.

[2naSalit]

23. That drives me as nutz as people who ask

written questions and don't use a question mark.

[VA_Jill]

27. It's not new

It's very common in certain parts of the country, particularly Appalachia and in the Ozarks (my mom grew up in SW Missouri and I visited there every summer as a child). It's called "uptalking" or "upspeaking" now, and as used in the parts of the country where I've lived and visited, it generally means one hasn't finished a thought or hasn't finished speaking. If it's also used in Canadian speech, it might have originated in Scotland. Appalachia was originally settled by Scots-Irish.

[NNadir]

28. As a ex-Californian (decidedly not the all important "Native") I noticed it 35 years ago.

Being something of a linguistic chameleon (but not quite at the level of my wife) I adopted it for a while myself.

In New Jersey, I've reverted to my New York patois, and every question is "What's your problem?" usually with an expletive before "problem." Just kidding...

I can speak generic Californian when required. What annoyed me when I first moved there, was being informed repeatedly that "Californians don't have an accent."

[Cirque du So-What]

29. Perhaps I'm just old and in need of a comprehensive hearing test

but some young people have become nearly impossible for me to understand. Their speech sounds flabby and tongue-tied, although I often get an intelligible answer when I say, ‘I can’t understand you,’ making me believe they weren’t trying to be understood before.

[OriginalGeek]

30. I'm 57

and I've been hearing that since at least high school?

[trackfan]

32. Uptalk

It started among teenagers, who are now about 45 years old now.

[UTUSN]

33. Goes back to Valley Girls. Irritating last couple of years, starting everything with, "So..."

Answering every question, "So..."

It's like announcing that they are about to explain, somehow that all of us benighted beings don't know the obvious. Condescending, patronizing, a variant of mansplaining but for everybody.

So.

Have I explained enough?!1

[yuiyoshida]

34. Japanese is much like that

for example; "Kono ofisu no kabe ni wa tosō sagyō ga hitsuyōda to omoimasu yo ne??"
translation: I think this office wall needs a paint job, right?

In Japanese the word "ne" is used a lot and comes at the end of a sentence. "ne" is often used when someone wants to include everyone and making sure everyone agrees.. its a polite way of speaking, so you include the people you are speaking with.


"Desu ne" is an ending to a sentence that they are wanting your confirmation. Desu ne(ですね )= is that right.

Ne (ね )
Ne can be translated into “isn’t it?” or “right?” in English. It is added to the end of a sentence in Japanese regardless of the level of politeness you’re using.

In general, the particle Ne is asking for confirmation, agreement or assent of the other person or group that the speaker is talking to. Typically, the Ne indicates that both the speaker and the listener share the same information or opinion about something. As a result, this particle creates a sense of togetherness.

Example:

みかさん：としおくん、今日いい天気ですね！
Mika-san: Toshio kun, kyou ii tenki desu ne!
Mika-san: Toshio, today’s weather is good, isn’t it?

In the above dialogue, Mika-san is expressing the idea of the weather being good, and Toshio san shares this information, either by knowing the weather, or because they are walking together. Ne is a good way to start a smooth conversation in this case.



https://cotoacademy.com/ending-particles-ne-and-yo/#:~:text=Yone

[grumpyduck]

35. Wow, thank you for taking the time to explain that!

[Marthe48]

37. My husband noticed in Korean

almost every sentence ended with ni da (I don't know how to spell it)

[Marthe48]

36. I noticed it years ago

Until recently, the messaging system at my dr. office had a recording of a young woman ending every sentence that way. Sounded like she was leaving off "you know what I mean, right?" and just making every statement a question. Glad they changed it.

[tblue37]

38. It's called upspeak or uptalk, and it's been around for quite awhile among certain subcultures.