Bored-sounding, sing-song way of talking

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I started noticing this on TV/radio, & now it's seeping into real life. Someone will be announcing something but instead of getting it across in a normal manner, they put on a dull, bored tone as if what they're saying is unimportant to them & having to announce it is sooooo tedious. Sometimes it also sounds like they're thinking about something else while talking.

I've recently had to listen to a series of talks, & the speakers did it. I get that they've probably said it all before, many times, but surely it's part of the job to NOT sound bored out of your own skull by the information you're imparting & resentful at having to say it?

As in the title, it's done with a childish, sing-song delivery.

Is this some new fashion?

YABU - It's the new normal
YANBU - It's infuriating

I have noticed it with young women particularly, it is very irritating.

I don't know if it's possible to do a link to an example, but I can't imagine this. Mind you, I don't listen to live radio or tv.

Is this the vocal fry/Kardashian thing where they speak really slowly and nasally, and drag out their syllables?

Amol Rajan is terrible for this!

All my IRL examples were young women. I hesitated to say so, but...

@BeardieWeirdie I’ve never seen the Kardashians, but I assumed it might have come from something like that or Tik Tok. The ones I have seen seem to be consciously lowering their voices and speaking in an almost robotic way, stretching the words

Rishi Sunak?!

Having just checked that out, no, this is something different.

Imagine you ask a child to tell you something or recite something, & they want to be off playing. They obey you but really, really don't want to do it so they gabble bits/ sound OTT bored/ sing-song their way through it.

Or imagine you're in a drama class & told to do the stagiest, most OTT bored person ever doing a flounce about being forced to make an announcement.

OP - I'm not quite sure if I understand exactly what you mean, but there are SO many voices and speaking habits/styles that annoy me - it must be a medical condition!

This is how extreme I am:

Used to be hooked on R4, but got really annoyed by many of the voices there - basically what sounded to me silly, patronising, dumbed down etc. I guessed it was a push to 'attract younger audiences', but I get the impression this policy hardly ever works - you just alienate your core audience. Younger people aren't the target audience....they'll start listening when they're 45, surely?

Anyway, I switched to R3 where it's mostly nice music and far less talking, but STILL my phobia of annoying voices afflicts me from time to time. There's a programme on Saturdays where 2 professional musicians chat informally and they always seem to be young women who spend much of the time giggling. This really winds me up. Yes, I know they want to have more women presenters and younger people, but does it have to follow from that that they need to giggle quite so much? Talk about stereotypes - I bet they wouldn't have men doing this.

Then there's a presenter on weekend mornings who might be an amazingly knowledgeable person for all I know, but she has the most 'winsome' and flirtatious delivery that I have to turn it off. All the announcements of music etc are breathy and just holding off a little girlish giggle.

Oh dear. I like my announcers plain, clear and simple. Don't try to flirt with me, don't treat me like your best mate or patronise me. That's all I ask and R4 and R3 used to be able to manage this.

Yes, it's fashion. Or, more accurately, it's the evolution of British speech.

The way we all talk is different to our forebears' generations. They probably hate how we talk too.

If broadcasters didn't reflect the changing styles of speech, they would all still sound like Joyce Grenfell and Prince Phillip.

I think I know what you mean OP - it’s the way a lot of YouTubers and influencers present their videos. I think it came from their self-consciousness as untrained amateur broadcasters, but as influencers have grown in popularity and status, the presenting style has become fashionable.

MasterBeth · Today 16:41

Yes, it's fashion. Or, more accurately, it's the evolution of British speech.

The way we all talk is different to our forebears' generations. They probably hate how we talk too.

If broadcasters didn't reflect the changing styles of speech, they would all still sound like Joyce Grenfell and Prince Phillip.

I know what you mean, MasterBeth, but I think it's also manipulative and a very conscious policy on the part of broadcasters - eg an often misguided attempt to attract different demographics.

It's not so much natural evolution as the result of a meeting at the BBC or similar where they decide they want to appeal to 20 year-olds, so replace experienced older broadcasters with hip young folk. I wonder if this ever works? It can just alienate the original audience. My contention is that some radio stations ARE for older people, on the whole (I'm atypical - I don't like pop music so I was the freak who listened to R3 in my teens!!). I've got lots of friends who used to listen to pop stations and made the transition in their late 30s or 40s to talk radio such as R4, and I think that's the way things evolve naturally.

I'm struggling to imagine both a bored and yet sing-song voice. Any examples?

@CoffeeCantata I'm with you on that. I think we need Radio Fogey, for those of us who know how things should be done.

@CoffeeCantata - yes, a deliberate attempt to keep their sound in line with contemporary podcasts, music broadcasters, international broadcasting etc etc.

Radio stations have always replaced "experienced older broadcasters with hip young folk" - and so they should. All of the experienced older broadcasters were hip young folk once.

Sorry, no. I wasn't allowed to record the talks & it wouldn't be fair to put them on here, if I had recorded someone.

It's a weird phenomenon - to me, anyway, as I don't watch influencers! I had difficulty explaining it to DH after the first talk, so I'm sure I'm not doing any better here.

It's a combination of someone saying something as though they've said it a thousand times before & are bored with it & letting it show BIG TIME (like 'we both know all about this but we have to go through the motions yada yada yada' & with heavy emphasis every now & then), done in a voice which rises & falls seemingly at random.

I'm just interested in where it's come from & how far it's spread.

It's probably people subliminally apeing Amol Rajan, who is every bloody where right now.

Some 'modern' broadcasting trends die the death. I'm old enough to remember when talking heads were deemed old-fashioned in documentaries, so they were replaced with endless streams of unrelated images (these always seemed to feature a nuclear explosion at some point).

Then there were documentaries which used talking heads but made them 'interesting', i.e. totally unwatchable, by

1. Circling the person speaking, the shaky-cam going round & round them till the viewer felt sick.
2. Switching constantly from colour to b/w & back again.
3. Changing the angle between the camera & the speaker, over & over. Now you're looking at their face, now the back of their head, now their ear, all as they deliver what would've been interesting to listen to if you hadn't been totally distracted.

Perhaps they're trying to sound all cynical and cool - sounding enthusiastic about something is childish kind of attitude.

Radio stations have alwaysreplaced "experienced older broadcasters with hip young folk" - and so they should. All of the experienced older broadcasters were hip young folk once.

Ah but - I don't think they were, always.

Yes - in the 60s when the pop stations started up. I think Alan Freeman and Peter Murray were not in the first flush, but yes - it's understandable that for pop you want a young image.

But with what used to be the Home Service (then R4) and the Third Programme (now R3) I think there was always a more mature feel. The emphasis was on presenters who were experts in their field or at least expert presenters, so they tended to be older. Both these stations had a vibe of sophistication and life experience rather than youth, and as I said before, I think that was valid once there were alternatives available for younger people, or people who liked more contemporary music/culture.

I remember as a child listening to Frank Muir, Robert Robinson, Alistair Cooke etc etc - all amazing voices and sophisticated broadcasters who NEVER patronised the audience. I remember thinking as a youngster how great it would be to be that clever and knowledgeable - it was something to aspire to. But now, when I listen to many R4 programmes, I feel they're talking to children. There are many honourable exceptions, but with them I'm just waiting for some trendy exec to axe them for being too RP, middle class or educated!

I've been out of the UK for a long time so I miss how accents change. I find the new BBC London English really off-putting. It's flat and boring and the actors sound bored using it, whilst sounding just as fake to my ears as RP. The new season of Good Omens is so full of it I had to turn it off. Do people actually talk like that now, or is the new RP so that Americans can understand, without the Downton label?

Thank god. I thought it was just me getting old.

The ages of Radio 4's broadcasters from Today until The World At One this morning:

Nick Robinson (59) and Michelle Husain (50)

Horatio Clare (50) and Professor Femi Oyebode (60s)

Fuschia Dunlop (50s)

Nualal McGovern (50s?)

Clarke Peters (71)

Ant Adene (30s?)

Winifred Robinson (65)

Sarah Montague (57)

I think it is an exaggeration to say that these people are not experienced, educated, expert voices.

Nephew does this

It's just so bad

Ohhhhh is THAT what it was? This really explains something to me because a few weeks ago I took the kids to York Minster (they were thrilled…not) and unbeknownst to me, we got there 3 mins after the tills closed for the day at 4pm.

As we approached the entrance, a young woman informed me they were now closed and rattled a spiel to me in the tone of voice you have described, and I felt so alienated. It was the auditory equivalent of speaking through a tannoy - very distancing and impersonal.

I almost didn’t reply to her as it felt my response was totally superfluous to her.

It was a really strange experience for what I clearly recognise is the old fogey I now must be (late 40s).

Pissed off - I can handle.
Tired and fed up of late comers - totally understandable.
But fake ‘presenter/tannoy voice’ - incongruous!?!