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Zeusthecat

I Had A Random Thought...

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Has anyone ever used the "Insert" key on your keyboard on purpose?  When I say anyone, I don't mean all of humanity, I mean literally the people reading this post.  Same for scroll lock.

I use insert a bunch, though mostly in keystroke combinations.

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What's the difference between an overnight forecast of "clear with periodic clouds" and "partly cloudy?"

 

I do not understand what Google is saying about the weather. It just looks partly cloudy to me.

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I'd guess partly cloudy is a persistent state, whereas clear with periodic clouds is mostly clear with clouds that show up every now and then.

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Have countries other than America experienced the trend of vocal fry? Other languages?

 

I know Canada is. These two articles (the second is a response to the first) suggest that the UK is experiencing a similar trend.

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"If you don’t like uptalk or vocal fry, fine: with language as with fashion and music we’re entitled to our personal preferences. But with language, people have a bad habit of presenting what are actually personal preferences as if they were objective facts." from second article. 

 

People do this with music all the damn time and it's the bane of my life. More on topic though I agree completely with the article. I'd imagine traveling 200 years into the future i'd encounter an english considerably changed to what i'm used to today. Does scifi stuff ever tackle this kind of thing? I haven't read much sci fi. 

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I don't read a ton of sci-fi, but the only one that comes to mind that deals with changing speech patterns as opposed to changing words is Zachry's section in Cloud Atlas.

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I know that I used to make fun of the youngin's trend of using "like" all the time in sentences, until I mockingly spoke like that enough to where it started creeping into my regular conversation. Once I saw that happen, I endeavor to not get bothered by speech patterns anymore. It's not worth the time.

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I don't know what vocal fry is.

 

Basically it's a speech pattern where you go kind of croaky at the end of your sentences.  It's a criticism thrown at women a lot, especially on places like NPR where the audience is older and thinks that it makes women sound "unprofessional" http://mentalfloss.com/article/61552/what-vocal-fry

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Basically it's a speech pattern where you go kind of croaky at the end of your sentences.  It's a criticism thrown at women a lot, especially on places like NPR where the audience is older and thinks that it makes women sound "unprofessional" http://mentalfloss.com/article/61552/what-vocal-fry

 

Ah!

 

It's that thing I do all the time that I didn't know had a name!

 

I've been doing that since I was a small child. Although not at like the end of my sentence, just sort of as a way to make my voice sound different for a bit. Although I'm sure it happens automatically sometimes without me even realizing it.

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The phenomenon of "vocal fry" appears to be pretty gender neutral, but it is solely women who end up getting criticized for sounding that way.  There's even some horrible/hilarious examples of men who use/have vocal fry criticize women for doing it (like Howard Stern).

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Basically it's a speech pattern where you go kind of croaky at the end of your sentences.  It's a criticism thrown at women a lot, especially on places like NPR where the audience is older and thinks that it makes women sound "unprofessional" http://mentalfloss.com/article/61552/what-vocal-fry

 

Thanks for the example.

 

I actually listened to several radio stories about it, but came out the other side still not understanding what it was.

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Queue is the worst word in the English language. Probably even worse than infrared.

 

From now on I am going to pronounce it as "Kwayway" purely out of spite.

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I wonder if I can train myself to use vocal fry.

Edit: I just tried it and it sounded so fake. That's hard.

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Queue is the worst word in the English language. Probably even worse than infrared.

 

From now on I am going to pronounce it as "Kwayway" purely out of spite.

 

I remember when I first went to Texas to see my ex's family and friends and used the word "queue" which caused everyone to look at me like I was a freak, every time I used it. I've always assumed since, that Americans just don't use that word.

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Infrared is at least actually pronounced how it's spelled.

 

Queue, unfortunately, is not pronounced "kyoo-ee-yoo-ee". ):

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Queue is the worst word in the English language. Probably even worse than infrared.

From now on I am going to pronounce it as "Kwayway" purely out of spite.

I pronounce it kiwi in my head and just picture a bunch of birds and New Zealanders (hobbits, elves, etc) in a line. That image makes me smile, so I'm generally okay with the word now.

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Random thought - Queueing has the second-most consecutive vowels in an English word (5), the most is technically Euouae which is some stupid Latin thing/"word" that somehow counts as English and has 6 consecutive vowels (which people would always correct me with when I said queueing had the most)

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