Excessive Vocal Fry is Our Enemy

I confess to be near a Howard Beale moment. The number of people you meet face to face , but mostly on the media (and all over the radio) who have adapted and adopted vocal fry as their chosen speaking affectation seems to grow exponentially every week. Last night there was a wonderful television interview with a Supreme Court Justice, but the youthful interviewer was drowning in her own vocal fry so badly that I switched channels.

Vocal fry is a very purposeful speech affectation where the speaker imitates having gravel stick in their throat and growls their words almost unintelligibly.  Think Clint Eastwood at his worst, but with the younger generation it appears that they growl for the sake of growling….and you just don’t understand A WORD.

Some popular singers have always had a rough singing style, but this is not stylistic…it is pure affectation and it is increasingly done without nuance, and really not very well.  Some describe vocal fry as an epidemic among young females, as if the younger generation needs another way to not be understood.

I intend to walk away…to tune out….to turn off when vocal fry abounds.  Even NPR, probably the worst offender, can take its hyphenated vocal fry broadcasters and throw them in the Potomac.  I will settle for reading transcripts of the Ruth Baden Ginsberg interview. She speaks clearly and without affectation.