Upspeak? MY child??? Nooooo!

[TheFirstToel]

DS is 8 and I know his friends do it but today for the first time I heard HIM doing it!

You know ending every sentence so it sounds like a question? Which is really annoying? And I had to do my utmost not to scream NOOOOO DON'T START TALKING LIKE THAT?

Though we are in the UK, by coincidence his two closest friends are both American and it sounds slightly less weird from them, but a friends's 8yo DD does it all the time and it makes me want to poke my own eyes out with a fork.

Yeeees, yes I know it's not wrong, it's just a highly interesting and completely natural linguistic change (DP is a linguist, I did linguistics at university, I knowwww that). But I am going to have to listen to it for the rest of my years aren't I...

[bonzo77]

I feel your pain. My 3.9 year old DS1 is doing it?

[Upcycled]

can you give any examples of someone who talks like this on TV because I don't understand what you mean

[ThreeBeeOneGee]

Ah yes, the curse of the rising inflection? When someone speaks like this, I do find it hard to take them seriously? Recently I saw a young woman making a presentation that would have sounded very professional if it weren't for her rising inflection?

[ThreeBeeOneGee]

I thi

[ThreeBeeOneGee]

I think

[TheFirstToel]

[ThreeBeeOneGee]

nk that Australian soap operas might be partly to blame?

[BiscuitMillionaire]

Yes but has he started saying, 'I was like...' instead of 'I said...' ? Both mine do this, it's like listening to Valley girls. We also had American friends.

[TheFirstToel]

Ermmm I think I might do that actually

[WhomessweetWhomes]

Ah yes - we call it A.Q.I. Australian Question Intonation. We all yell 'A.Q.I.' at each other if we catch each other doing it. I'm a bit worried dd will yell it at strangers though .

[ohtanmybum]

Valley girl speak and AQI are, like, soooo annoying, like, I mean, soooo, like, irritating? Every time I like hear them, I'm, like, 'Oh nooooo, that's soooooo, like, soooooo annoying?'. Omg, like I mean, I'm like reeeeeeally irritated? My friend, Shaniqwa, is like 'Chill girlfriend, like you reeeeeally need to chill'. But I'm like 'Noooo way?'.

[LabRat72]

My 7 year old dd does this too. She also talks in an American accent when she's playing with her dolls or whatever. I blame the Disney channel.

[ArgyMargy]

I really dislike this - unless I am talking to an Australian. I think this is OK in the Australian dialect. Unfortunately I have a couple of colleagues who do this all the time and I have to resist asking them why they do it...

[cardibach]

Taylor Mali has great opinions on it