Re: Warm Coffee Voices

1

I hate my voice and public radio.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 10:43 AM
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2

"Hate" is probably too strong of a word. I'm glad they are both there, but I don't want to spend much time thinking about either.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 10:43 AM
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3

I like my NPR voices like my coffee.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 11:06 AM
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4

I don't drink coffee.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 11:06 AM
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5

But a very good piece.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 11:06 AM
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6

1: So you're happy unfogged hasn't installed an audio app?


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 11:06 AM
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7

For me, due to synthesia, "warm coffee voices" are associated with dark-skinned people.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 11:09 AM
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8

I really liked his two versions of the fish story, voicing take 1 and voicing take 2. I think it brings out the way NPR-type stories like to have an unmarked narrator voice and then a marked "authentic" subject voice, and he's playing around with that.

I've talked for a living for over a decade now and it's really impacted how I speak, mostly in ways I don't particularly like but find hard to quantify. I have become much more generic because that's what my computer prefers, and I say that as someone who's very much a white person with a "neutral" white accent.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 11:10 AM
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9

I like my NPR voices like my coffee.

Fried?


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 11:12 AM
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10

Being poured into someone else's ear.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 11:14 AM
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11

Even his name fits into the "they want me to be black, but not too black" NPR paradigm. Chenjerai Kumanyika is too much; Michael Chenjerai-Nelson would be perfect.


Posted by: Tim "Ripper" Owens | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 11:20 AM
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12

and it's really impacted how I speak

For example, you started using "impact" as a verb? Is that one of the ways it has affected your speech?


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 11:20 AM
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13

12: Yes. Filtering corporatespeak through my brain so long has done significant damage. My morals are also probably bad.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 11:23 AM
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14

My morals are also probably bad

As my grandmother might have said, "Oy! If only everyone's morals were so bad!"


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 11:28 AM
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15

Par-tayyy!!


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 11:34 AM
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16

Filtering corporatespeak through my brain so long has done significant damage.

Hm. Have you tried leveraging your synergies?


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 11:35 AM
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17

AIMHMHBOUAT, a professor I was working for as a Graduate Assistant once called me a "resource" to my face.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 11:37 AM
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18

He wasn't as much fun as the one who would later date the undergraduates.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 11:40 AM
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19

17: I get called that all the time at work and it's always intended as a compliment -- "peep is a great resource! Call him whenever you're having trouble finding something!" -- and I smile and look down modestly.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 11:41 AM
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20

Oh. I laughed.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 11:42 AM
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21

I also really enjoyed listening to the two versions of the fisherman story. Part of what makes it extra interesting to listen to, to me, is that there are multiple things going on with the revision. He's not just adjusting his dialect and register from the first to the second, he's also just generally (though in a thematically relevant way) tweaking it to try to make it better, because it's student work in a workshop setting.


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 11:50 AM
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22

and I smile and look down modestly

"I'll be coked to the gills when I bump that old buzzard off."


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 11:50 AM
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23

22 is a very elliptical association that probably only exists as even that in my own mind.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 11:53 AM
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24

And hmm, "Remember personal info" seems to have gone Skynet on is operating to further its own obscure ends.

Back now, and I touched nothing.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 11:59 AM
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25

If they sold coffee that tasted like Bob Edwards' voice, I'd buy the shit out of that.


Posted by: MAE | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 12:08 PM
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26

25: Hmmm..." NPR Coffee, Smooth and mellow just like our voices..." Could that work?


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 12:11 PM
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27

I'll take a grande quad-shot Bob Mondello, please.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 12:12 PM
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28

I like my radio voices like I like my coffee: bowel-movement-causing.


Posted by: Todd | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 12:47 PM
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29

NPR coffee : drink some every day, but only buy some every couple of years!


Posted by: cleek | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 12:52 PM
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30

But 19 isn't the offensive meaning of "resource," is it? At least I wouldn't interpret it that way. It's a compliment (or at least a complimentary description) about the particular person's knowledge or ability to answer questions.

I would have thought that 17 was talking about "resource" in the sense of "adding resources to a project," which does feel more offensive when someone says it about people. Or maybe I'm drawing a distinction that doesn't exist.


Posted by: widget | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 1:28 PM
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31

Yes. If he would have said "MH is a resource", I wouldn't have noticed.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 1:31 PM
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32

29 is great.

Diane Rehm Blend: unbearable now, but you liked the old recipe.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 2:03 PM
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33

I should run this past my good friend who's in public radio (local environmental/reporting). He has a generic white American accent, but not the smooth NPR voice. OTOH, when I hear him on the radio, it definitely takes me a second to recognize - more even-toned than IRL, and fewer cock jokes.

A friend of ours married a guy who's a local DJ*, and the few times I've been around him IRL, it's shockingly the same as his radio voice. Which, come to think of it, has been my experience with the other 3 DJs I've spoken with IRL - most of those guys (and women) come by their jobs honestly, in that their voices are naturally pleasant and sonorous.

*in the non-Portland sense


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 2:07 PM
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34

an unmarked narrator voice and then a marked "authentic" subject voice

This describes it very well. I've noticed every once in awhile that sometimes the "marked" voice is so thickly accented that I'm waiting for a translator to pop up until I realize that, technically, what I'm hearing is intelligible. Since basically the only NPR news I ever hear is between 7:20 and 7:45 am, my brain is rarely in any condition to intelligate it.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 2:09 PM
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35

||

I just bought like $1400 of replacement/upgrade radiators. I'm really hoping at least one arrives before it gets below 0° Friday night.

|>


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 2:10 PM
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36

Are the old ones still attached?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 2:12 PM
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37

All the men I know who have "radio voices" & work in radio are surprisingly short.


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 2:41 PM
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38

37: Are they actually short or are they average-sized, but their voices sound tall?


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 2:44 PM
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39

36: Kind of. One rusted out a couple years ago and another rusted out but was replaced by a smaller unit. Last cold snap, my office was down to 48°.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 2:48 PM
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40

I see the problem.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 2:53 PM
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41

Short, like 5' on a good day. Not that there is anything wrong with that!


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 2:54 PM
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42

All the men I know who have "radio voices" & work in radio are surprisingly short.

Heh, just a few weeks ago I was working a part time downtown and one of our local popular radio personalities went walking by on his way to the gym. I was kind of surprised at how small he was. I pulled of some pics of him with his co-host and the other guy doesn't look much taller.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 3:26 PM
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43

41: 5' is huge isn't it? Oh, ok, I guess you're talking about something else.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 3:28 PM
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44

I feel like it's failing the test to admit that I really liked voice 1 better. It was just so much easier to hear what he was saying, I think because of the higher pitch.


Posted by: Swope FM | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 5:54 PM
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45

Funny how the Car Talk guys never had to moderate their accents.

Zorba Paster and Tom Clark have suuuuper-annoying voices, as does Lynne Rossetto Kasper. But I don't know how much of that is finding them annoying and then extending it to their voices.


Posted by: Merganser | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 6:17 PM
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46

45: I don't know Zorba Paster and Tom Clark. What shows are they on?


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 9:13 PM
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47

They're both on "Zorba Paster On Your Health". Zorba has kind of a nasal voice but his laugh is really grating and he presents these completely lame healthy recipes of the week. Tom Clark is his gosh-wow sidekick who Zorba gets to explain things to. It's intolerable.


Posted by: Merganser | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 9:50 PM
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48

Lynne Rossetto Kasper

I wonder what percent of regular listeners would be able to spell even one of these names right. Not me, until now.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 10:01 PM
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49

Nor I; I cut and pasted.


Posted by: Merganser | Link to this comment | 01-27-15 10:21 PM
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50

39 to 38


Posted by: Nworb Werdna | Link to this comment | 01-28-15 12:41 AM
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51

All the men I know who have "radio voices" & work in radio are surprisingly short.

I discovered the other day that Putin is under 5' 7", which made a lot of things much clearer. I know he's not on the radio, but you see pictures.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 01-28-15 5:32 AM
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52

Small man syndrome, and all that.*

* no offence to the non-arsehole majority of small men.**

** I'm hardly a giant myself.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 01-28-15 6:00 AM
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53

I'm 5'8", so that's fine.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01-28-15 6:08 AM
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54

Very tangentially related to the OP, Richard Sherman on Marshawn Lynch:

Some of the same people slamming Marshawn for not talking are just as likely to condemn the Browns' Andrew Hawkins and Johnson Bademosi for protesting police brutality with T-shirts. They want to hear us speak, but only if we're saying something they want to hear.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 01-28-15 8:40 AM
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55

All these dudes of small stature and sonorous voice I know are very nice by the way - but then none are Corsican.


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 01-28-15 8:23 PM
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56

Brian Lehrer (NY area NPR personality) lives in our neighborhood, and Buck has been mistaken for him in the corner bodega a couple of times. They are both bald, but Buck is literally a foot taller. (Oh, probably not. But eight inches at least.)


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-28-15 8:30 PM
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57

All the women on NPR sound alike or I always happen to catch the same show.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01-28-15 8:43 PM
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58

One of my students this year is a native Arabic speaker, and arguing to have evidence excluded she sometimes says executed instead. And she does that micro inhalation after a "ex". It is adorable. Also - she is amazing compared to other students over the years, even without factoring in that up to about three years ago she was living in a war zone. Huge eyes, quiet passion, just wonderful on defense.


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 01-28-15 8:44 PM
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57 -- The existence of Brian Lehrer makes me sad, because there is an LA version of him (Larry Mantel) who does exactly the same thing but is so, so much more stupid, thus confirming stereotypical NYC superiority. And a San Francisco version who is also way stupider than Brian Lehrer but whose name (Michael somebody) I forget.


Posted by: Glenn Tipton | Link to this comment | 01-28-15 8:54 PM
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60

61: Michael Krasny.


Posted by: Josh | Link to this comment | 01-28-15 8:56 PM
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61

That SF dude is unlistenably awful.


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 01-28-15 8:57 PM
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