Ermagerd!!!! Lets all mock those with speech impediments! Yay!

[flamingdem]

74. Women are the biggest linguistic trendsetters.

http://www.themarysue.com/women-change-language/

We all know that language changes pretty fast. Dictionaries, while useful reference materials, aren’t what language is derived from, but merely a blurry snapshot of an ever changing lexicographical landscape. Who pushes most of that change? Who appears to be on the cutting edge of significant, lasting, and eventually socially widespread changes in inflection and diction?

Young women, according to a lot of linguists.

Most of the vocal trends we associate with young women, like uptalk (ending declarative sentences as if they were questions), using “like” as a pause word rather than as a verb or preposition, or the infamous vocal fry (ending a sentence with a deep dip in tone) are associated with “immaturity or even stupidity,” as the New York Times puts it. But linguists know: the living evolution of communication doesn’t make a lot of stupid choices. Says Nassima Abdelli-Beruh, author of the internet-infamous vocal fry study: “They use this as a tool to convey something. You quickly realize that for them, it is as a cue.”

It should come as no surprise to anyone that if linguists observe trends in language change, they’re going to find the youth of the culture at the forefront of it. But linguists have also found the women tend to be “half a generation ahead of males on average,” according to Dr. Mark Liberman of the University of Pennsylvania, and that doesn’t mean that the change stays there.