Daily Mail
December 8, 2013
First men became enamoured with grooming regimes, but now it seems the metrosexual man has started talking in a more feminine way too.
A new study has revealed that modern men are starting to ‘uptalk’ by rising in pitch at the ends of sentences.
The speech pattern is associated with young women from southern California, notably Clueless lead character Cher Horowitz, but is now common amongst younger people.
Scientists came across the finding when they were trying to investigate the difference between uptalkers making a statement and asking a question.
Uptalkers are stereotypically parodied as insecure, shallow and not very clever females.
However, scientists from the University of California, San Diego, who recorded the voices of 24 young southern Californians, found that the 12 men they studied also uptalked and the speakers came from different backgrounds – not just mansions in Beverley Hills.
They were given several speech tasks, such as providing directions from a map, or recounting what happened after watching a clip from a popular sitcom.
‘We found use of uptalk in all of our speakers, despite their diverse backgrounds in socio-economic status, ethnicity, bilingualism and gender,’ study leader Dr Amanda Ritchart, a linguist at the university said.
The research, which was presented at the annual meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in San Francisco, identified a crucial difference between uptalkers making a statement and asking a question.
In a statement, the rise in pitch began significantly later than in a question.