These days I bristle when I hear someone up-talking.
Up-talkers sound the ends of their sentences with a vocal upswing so that when they relate some event or express an opinion, each statement sounds like a question. Here is a real question with a natural upswing at the end: “Does Donald Trump brush his hair each morning?” Hear the words rise until they climax at the final syllable of “morning.” The questioner wants you to answer yes, or no, or something else. An up-talker might say something like this: “I’m not sure? I’ve heard that it might be a toupee?”http://wlrn.org/post/uptalk-downtown-new-yawk-robert-siegel-explored-how-we-speak
Lets talk about another aggravating mannerism. Some people “um” their ideas. “Um…I’ve been wondering …um…whether his hair is…um real or not.”
And, even worse: “Is his hair– like– real or not? Is he -like- going to this hairdresser everyday to– like– fix it up so that he can– like– face the day?”
Although pros who interview guests on TV and radio have not succumbed to up-talking, the people they interview often do up-talk, a lot. Even these professional guests have adopted this curious form of response. When they relate an incident or support their views with a story, sometimes the entire narrative sounds uncertain:
“I’m sort of working on a new novel ?… which is kind of a story about recent presidents’ hairstyles?.. It’s kind of a memoir because I knew the last four presidents and it was -like- sort of a natural for me?
Notice the annoying habit of using words like “sort of” and “kind of” as modifiers which work to soften what comes next: “Trump has a kind of Bozo thing going with his stylist. In my novel, Trump kind of stashes stuff under his pompadour. When he kind of stages a haircut coup he sort of loses his grip on the populace. I was -like- blown away when I-like- discovered this. Totally awesome!
Just thought I’d note this trend of indecision which has crept into our conversations. It’s sort of a virus which has -like- squirmed into our narratives and makes us sound -like- were unsure of what we are saying? Why can’t we just-like- mean what we say?