Annoying voices

Just noticed that this discussion from 10+ years ago has been resurrected.

The word 'inflection' springs to mind. Within a year of Neighbours being broadcast in the UK, I became aware that my peers and myself would make statements that sounded like questions. It became a habit that I then worked hard to break.

It doesn't bother me when Australians and Kiwis speak with an inflection (when they are not actually asking questions). It also doesn't bother me when people that have emigrated to Australia or New Zealand acquire the accent and speak with an inflection. What I do find mildly irritating is when people who don't fall into those categories speak with an inflection.

At the risk of sounding like a grumpy fuddy-duddy, I find it equally as irritating when I hear people born and bred in the UK talking like they were born and bred in The Bronx.

Luke,
You may want to explore your interest in how we produce speech. If you really get into it, and discover you understand it well, you could maybe become a speech therapist, or a dialogue coach.  :-)

You wonderful person, thank you, really.  I understand about feeling like you've written too much, because you've just supplied the "pound of cure."

I also have 99th percentile, non-hyper, "inattentive type" ADD, so it's taken me years to Google "autism and others voices."

It took several tries, 
(No, Google, thank you, but when i write "hearing others actual voices," I really don't want results about auditory hallucinations. ;-) ... )
But finally I found my way here.

Decades ago, right after I had a (thankfully non-cancerous) mole removed from one of my temples, I had a couple of fresh stitches, and was listening to US NPR's "All Things Considered" news program.  Among all things they make a real, honest effort to be inclusive, and that hour, it meant they were interviewing a guy with a voice that didn't strike me as male or female. 

I liked the content of what he was saying.   But I couldn't help flinching, every time he spoke.  And every flinch pulled on my stitches, and hurt.  I wished I could stop flinching.  I kept hoping they'd wrap up the interview.

I've since wondered "Is it prejudice? Is it the shock of the different?"

Decades later, I learned of misophonia, and finally had a word for, and an explanation of why I was always so set on edge by the sound of anyone smacking their lips, while chewing.

I've wondered if autism is expressed in sensitivities to other sounds, tones, ways of speech.  And it's taken me over 30 years to find this thread, today.

I think we all need to keep in mind that our reactions aren't judgements.  They don't mean the people plucking our last nerves are doing anything wrong.  It just means "This really, really isn't for us."

Thanks for this discussion.  I hope I've made a helpful contribution.

Back around 1977, our high school's drama teacher had a one-day exercise, in which each of her students were to try to get through a day saying only one word,  I still remember the year before, when one of my friends would only say "Really," with various tones.  A year later, when I took the class, I realized what he had been doing.

I would never do that to others, unless I was assigned that exercise.  I understand a word can be overused. :-)

Fear enters through the eyes and the ears ~ Old Roman proverb

Can you close of the senses ?

I think it is to do with sensory processing

sorry if anyone is insulted by my personal description of how I experience different accents, theres no insult intended to anyone, I just don't like/understand why people communicate verbally in certain ways that to me seem unnecessary/exagerrated/contrived - such as raising your voice, shouting, speaking fast.

Welsh does not mean the language or the people - it just means the way Welsh people verbally talk, I don't like the way the tone goes up and up and up the longer a sentence goes on...

Someone Welsh said - "I went to the supermarket to buy some milk but when I got there it was closed so I had to walk all the way to the corner shop" -  every word got louder and higher - by the time they got to the words 'corner shop' it sounded to me like they were almost shrieking - it just feels so unneccessary. I want to avoid it, as other accents as well - simply because Ifeel like people are arguing/in a panic or a hurry or there is a problem, it makes me feel anxious thats all, I want to avoid anxiety so therefore I want to get away from the accent.

Yes, totally... you're talking about a specific vocal 'act' that anybody can do, and I can understand how it adds that element of frustrating vagueness, people apparently turning a phrase which would be a statement into a question.

I find it strange sometimes talking to people in person as I fixate so intensely upon their words - I find myself thinking about how speech is actually produced - i.e. through breath, and the manipulation of it through physical 'machinery' biological in nature.

It can be quite surreal thinking about the tongue and throat when somebody is trying to make a point about something to get you to focus on that.

It is such an intricate process, with so many parts - I find my attention wondering.

Sometimes I just want to laugh at things like this for no discernable reason, and I know it would appear strange. I generally manage to stifle these 'giggles' when they're happening, but my brother doesn't seem to be able to - or isn't interested in doing.

He just laughs out loud at something in his own head - it's actually really frustrating, I want to know what's so funny!

Also, can get paranoid he's laughing at me, or something I've done.

That was what happened a little while ago when me and my support worker visited my brother.

He (Tom - my brother) just started chuckling to himself, mid-conversation with the three of us, and I didn't think anything of it, as I'm totally used to it... then I noticed Sean (my support worker) was looking puzzled and maybe a little worried, like he might have done something wrong, so I had to explain to him:

'Tom just laughs at stuff randomly sometimes. Don't worry about it.'

Pretty silly, huh?

I can see the point you are making. It would be racist if you argued that the speakers of a certain accent were less intelligent or inferior  due to their accent, but many people prefer certain accents to others. This is not objective, it is a subjective preference, based on the individual perception of sound, which is akin to music and melody. Uptalk  or HRT is indeed more common in some accents than others, notably Australian and certain American accents, but it has recently infiltrated the accents of many British people. I don't like it because the speaker sounds uncertain, and I like speech which conveys authority and certainty. This is just the way my brain works.

I'm sure it wasn't intended, but I guess:

'worst of all is Welsh, god I hate it'

Feels decidedly bordering onto something which could be interpreted as disrespectful, and:

'Indian and Pakistani Urdu accents are just plain irritating like someone saying rubbadubbadub'

Even more so and, taken out of context:

'Middle Eastern, Eastern European, Russian and Italian and Portuguese sound like they are being obnoxious.'

I guess people have a limited amount of choice about how they speak, and that's why it's potentially offensive to make judgements about them regarding it.

I know how annoyed I get hearing how I've got a flat, monotonous tone (i.e. because 'I'm autistic' rather than in relation to anything I've actually said).

I know people aren't intending it, but I'm assuming that's why a mod posted, although we're talking quite objectively about perceptions of sound around is, it still broadly amoutns to picking out a single characteristic about a group of individuals and portraying it negatively.

You could say it amounts to:

'Does anybody else find it really difficult being around white people? I'm not racist, it's not that there's anything actually wrong with them as such, it's just the colour of their skin, all pale and creamy... I just don't like it.'

Which I think you could understand is kind of a contentiously charged opinion to express?

Sorry, I don't mean to criticise people, I just feel like I can understand why a mod would feel nervous about the way the conversation had been headed at times - it is getting into the territory of 'racism' and/or 'otherwise disciminatory' which I think was the reason that the second rule was highlighted, rather than links to hate sites, or porn... combined with being offensive or insulting, which I think you can understand if you feel like you're being called irritating or obnoxious.

Ok, I've written loads now and I feel like I'm going-on and labouring a point which was probably obvious in the first place anyway.

Isn't it interesting how voices are sculpted by surroundings? I mean... you wouldn't say something about the physical features of people from certain regions of the world, would you?

I hate my thick Yorkshire accent by the way, makes me sound like a gormless thick-headed numb-skulled moron, although interestingly, my brother, who was raised in virtually exactly the same environment, has extremely received pronunciation and very little accent.

Hmm... is it possible to be racist against yourself?

I think the people here are just expressing there views on sensory sounds not hate crime ?

Hi everyone,

Just a reminder about rules 1 & 4 of our community. 

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Please bear this in mind whilst continuing this conversation. 

http://community.autism.org.uk/rules

Really?

I can't stand contrived voices!. I know someone who says 'yaars' instead of 'yes', and it is to sound relaxed, casual or cool, but it has the opposite effect!. I also think the word 'really' is overused, such as 'really?, really?', each time said at a different pitch. It is as if they  are not taking the speaker seriously, even if this is my gloss on it.

People who talk Chinese sound to me like they are in a panic, Middle Eastern, Eastern European, Russian and Italian and Portuguese sound like they are being obnoxious, Indian and Pakistani Urdu accents are just plain irritating like someone saying rubbadubbadub at differing volumes - I don't know if it's the actual accent or just the way they speak, many of the tones go up and down, but Thai, German and Scandanavian accents don't bother me, worst of all is Welsh, god I hate it, it grates.......and when it comes to English I can't hack people who talk like 'dis an dat' - the whole thing is a complete put on - they talk like that because they think it's cool - based on other people on the same lower rung of the evolutionary ladder thinking it's cool.

Azelea  I tawt I taw a putty tat ? (tweety's pies way of saying "I thought I saw a *** cat")  

maybe we should learn to listen to there gap in between there words, aka the silence .. ahhhh it sounds all the same to me then  

Ha, that Hormone Replacement thing made me laugh. Yeah, the high rise thing is exactly what I mean - it can come across as patronising and overly sentimental. I know they can't help it; people without AS are born with the social brain, and it follows that they all pick up the latest social meme (to borrow a word from Richard Dawkins). As an observer, and someone who can speak quite differently (I have been told that I speak received English, even though my parents and brother don't speak it!), I am quite sensitive to it!

Is HRT(Not hormone replacement treatment) a whining noise which increases,, yeahhhhhhhh,,,, alrighhhhhhhtttttt as a raising tone.

I find that I dislike hissers, people who talk, but actually hiss as they speak at the end of each word,, like someone spraying aerosol at the same time,, a lot of newsreaders and woman do this. My ears hate it !

People who talk too slowly. People who talk with high tones(william hague), people will booming low tones(james earl brown). People who talk in bytes,, stop and start,, (obama). When you have sensitive ears,, these off-keys hurt your mind.

even the actors on eastenders and corronation street, voice annoy me... I think these actors are picked to annoy me..(not that I watch these programmes) as my rational mind starts screaming,, stop listening !

It is a very interesting subject Hope