Different Voices

[Misty_Morning]

Ok. Don’t laugh.

My friends have informed me that I have several “voices”.

Apparently I have my normal voice that is kinda “girly” (this what they say and I do not believe it) and which is most useful when I get pulled over by the cops.

Then I got my pissed off voice where my intonation drops and becomes rather “gruff”.

Then I have my professional voice that I utilize during presentations and interviews. My friends are most amused by this voice. It is rather direct, much lower in tone, very punctuated and extremely “forceful”. I have also been told that it is very sexy and that I should talk this way all the time.
(Yeah, right.)

Personally, I think that this all a bunch a bullshit.

So, do you have different voices for different occasions?

Just asking…….

 

[minsue]

Yup..

 

[damppanties]

Um, no. I don't think so. And no one has told me I have different voices yet.

Of course, there are times when I'll change the volume, like whispering or something, but I don't think that's a different 'voice'.

 

[oggbashan]

Yes.

It depends on the circumstances.

I have a normal speaking voice, fairly quiet.

I have a different voice when speaking to small children.

I have a public meeting voice - loud and clear not needing a microphone.

I have what my wife describes as my 'quarterdeck voice' for getting silence at a noisy event (quarterdeck as in 18th century ship's captain addressing the masthead lookout in a storm).

I have a telephone voice and manner, Civil Service trained. That voice was so close to my father's that his personal secretary couldn't tell us apart on the phone.

Most people vary their 'voice' and manner of speaking depending on their role in the interaction. Whenever they meet my wife and sister revert to their childhood voices and roles - that irritates both of them. They should relate to each other as mature adults with achievements. They become squabbling siblings...

Og

 

[rgraham666]

I so rarely speak out loud, I have no idea.

 

[Misty_Morning]

Yes.

It depends on the circumstances.

I have a normal speaking voice, fairly quiet.

I have a different voice when speaking to small children.

I have a public meeting voice - loud and clear not needing a microphone.

I have what my wife describes as my 'quarterdeck voice' for getting silence at a noisy event (quarterdeck as in 18th century ship's captain addressing the masthead lookout in a storm).

I have a telephone voice and manner, Civil Service trained. That voice was so close to my father's that his personal secretary couldn't tell us apart on the phone.

Most people vary their 'voice' and manner of speaking depending on their role in the interaction. Whenever they meet my wife and sister revert to their childhood voices and roles - that irritates both of them. They should relate to each other as mature adults with achievements. They become squabbling siblings...

Og

Thank you, sweet babe, thank you...


I do not feel like a freak now...

And it makes sense now...

 

[TheEarl]

Oh, without a doubt. With me, it tends to be my accent that changes depending on circumstances.

When at interviews, talking to girlfriend's parents or annoying Aussie shopkeepers, my accent becomes crisp BBC English, with every consonant enunciated perfectly and vowels kept round and sharp.

When I'm with friends, it tends to have some inflections of SE-England with a couple of letters being swallowed and some flat vowels. It's still more than enough to earn me the 'posh' moniker though.

When I'm talking to someone with a 'common' accent (Not a judgement; there's no other way to describe it), my accent drops to the level I learned to emulate in school; still posh, but far easier to blend in to the crowd and more likely to get a favourable reaction than my natural one.

It's not even a conscious thing; most of the time I don't even notice it.

The Earl

 

[Vermilion]

Hell yeah.

Phone voice, family voice, professional voice, flirty voice and then my voice changes depending upon who I'm taling to as well... aceent-wise at least.

x
V

 

[cloudy]

Oh, without a doubt. With me, it tends to be my accent that changes depending on circumstances.

That's me, as well.

I can be as southern as can be, if the need arises, but put me back home in Ontario, and my accent changes to a native cadence, with the occasional "eh" added on.

 

[FallingToFly]

I do Southern Belle charm very well at interviews.
I do Southern Belle pissed off belle very well when dealing with abrasive customer service people.
When I'm very upset or very "on guard" people mistake me for a shy Irish immigrant (I didn't know there was such a thing.) or a Brit.
When speaking French- or english with a native French speaker, I sound French.
The rest of the time I sound like a private school diva from the middle of nowhere, I have a very "snobby" tone which isn't intentional- a combination of my natural voice and my mother's endless school-mistress hammering of "enunciate, for the love of God!"
And apparently I purr when I'm about to rip a strip off of someone or I've just had sex. At least that's what people keep telling me- I don't hear it.

 

[oggbashan]

French

I was taught French by a Gibraltarean, then a Yorkshireman and finally an Australian who had a pronounced Strine accent.

My interest is in 18th Century France.

My 'French' voice is 18th century antique with a strong Australian accent. It makes most French people smile if not actually laugh.

My wife's French is upper-class cut-glass Parisian. In Calais or elsewhere in Nord Pas de Calais she is taken for an educated native speaker from Paris (married to a weird antipodean hick!).

Og

 

[Elsie Grey]

oh yeah, lots of different voices.

One for talking to my class and another entirely for when I want them to know I am upset (really pissed off) with out having to raise my voice, a voice for answering the telephone, a coxing voice for rowing and my normal voice!

Elsie

xxx

 

[Liar]

I have one public voice and three private voices.

When I speak on a stage, in front of a crowd, to a classroom, or something like that.
One on one with people I don't know. Store clerks, new work contacts.
One on one with people I have an established contact with. Work people, neighbors, friends of friends.
One on one with people I know really well. Friends, lovers and family.

I've been told thst those are very different. other than that, I tend to talk exactly the same way to small kids as I do to their parents, or the family dog, or my boss. Kids age 5 to 12 tend to like me because it sounds like I think of them as adults.

 

[scriptordelecto]

Several different voices.

There's the soft southern lilt(which works wonders on difficult males),

there's my 'proper' professional voice(which makes people think I know more than I do),

then I have my cutsie voice(which hubby finds adorable).

I also have the annoying habit of picking up the accent of the person I am talking to. I can't help it, especially if they happen to be a brit.

Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that the british accent is the closest to the american southern accent. (Hell, where do you think it came from?)

Or maybe it's the ancestry coming through? Hmmm. I like that....genetic accents.

 

[Vermilion]

a) sorry to be pedantic but there isn't a British accent. You can just about generalise with 'English' accent, but tell a Scot or Welshman that they have the same accent as an Englishman and you're going to lose body parts. Seriously.

b) Southern American sounds like an English accent? Seriously? Like... Reese Witherspoon American? I always feel like I'm changing my accent a lot when I do a Southern American one...

x
V

 

[scriptordelecto]

a) sorry to be pedantic but there isn't a British accent. You can just about generalise with 'English' accent, but tell a Scot or Welshman that they have the same accent as an Englishman and you're going to lose body parts. Seriously.

b) Southern American sounds like an English accent? Seriously? Like... Reese Witherspoon American? I always feel like I'm changing my accent a lot when I do a Southern American one...

x
V

forgive the generalization...we'll blame it on the pain meds

The southern accent is more like an english accent that has rolled lazily over onto it's side

 

[R. Richard]

Apparently I have a very identifiable voice. When I used to work for defense companies, I would often work at customer sites and I would call back to the company where I worked. Even if I did not identify myself, the receptionists [they changed about once a week] would always recognize my voice.

As to language usage, I tend to use the language that the people I am talking with use. Like Micheal Caine, "I can do any accent." And that is from West coast media American to pimp argot.

 

[Skip1934]

*bump*

 

[Stella_Omega]

a) sorry to be pedantic but there isn't a British accent. You can just about generalise with 'English' accent, but tell a Scot or Welshman that they have the same accent as an Englishman and you're going to lose body parts. Seriously.

b) Southern American sounds like an English accent? Seriously? Like... Reese Witherspoon American? I always feel like I'm changing my accent a lot when I do a Southern American one...

x
V

The regional accent from around the Alabama/Georgia stateline sounds very much like some undifferentiated London-ish accent- there's less drawl, a little bit of nasality, and a "dark" sound to the vowels.

I have a brisk communicative voice, a southern slow voice (I'm told) and a whiney rock-star imitation for fun...

Yesterday we were at a cheap sushi joint. One of the chefs was talking to the waitress, and I could tell by his accent that he was from Osaka. It sounds like Italian!

 

[Dr_Strabismus]

I have the "Zellig" syndrome -- I adopt the accent of the person I'm talking to. Americans think I'm American, etc.

 

[jomar]

Yes, I do. But they're all variations on a theme.

 

[Grushenka]

cut-glass Parisian

Evocative and precisely descriptive. Lovely.

antipodean hick

Charmingly humorous.
========

I've cultivated voices to suit places, situations and people (love, work, shopping, parents, friends, sex). No big deal, makes life easier.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I have the "Zellig" syndrome -- I adopt the accent of the person I'm talking to. Americans think I'm American, etc.

I always thought you were Lithuanian.

 

[Dr_Strabismus]

I always thought you were Lithuanian.

No, you're thinking of Danny Kaye. It's easy: He's dead, I'm not. Humph.

 

[Stella_Omega]

No, you're thinking of Danny Kaye. It's easy: He's dead, I'm not. Humph.

Funny, you look so much alike! Are you two related?