Friday, April 29, 2005

Enunciations

I've noticed while listening to many songs that singers will pronounce words ending in -y with an "eh" sound, instead of "ee", as they would in normal conversation.

Instead of singing "baby, it's not easy", they'll sing, "bay-beh, it's not ea-zeh". Sometimes, they'll even sing "beh-beh".

"Really" typically comes out as "RILL-leh", instead of as the spoken, "ree-lee".

I've heard other words sung with altered pronunciations as well. One I've noticed a lot lately is "miracle", sung as "MEEEER-ih-kul", rather than the spoken "MIH-rih-kul".

What's up with this? Are singers taught to enunciate in this fashion when they take voice lessons or what?

Another quirky thing I've noticed is that British singers lose their accents when they're singing. Is that odd or what?

I've noticed some people talking on radio and TV who pronounce "wh" words such as where, what, whether, which, and so on as if they're spelled hwere, hwat, hwether, hwich, and so on. I looked in the dictionary and, lo and behold, this is considered "proper". What's up with that?

I don't care how proper it may be, it sounds prententiously hoity-toity, and I never hear such enunciations in normal conversations.

I've noticed many female deejays who are obviously speaking in a register lower than what is natural for them. I can only presume they've been taught to speak in this manner. While I agree that there is nothing more irritating than a grown woman with a babytalk voice that sounds as if she's eight years old, trying to sound like Bea Arthur or Lauren Bacall when nature didn't gear you for it is going a tad overboard. Don't get me wrong, I love a woman with a naturally husky voice, but for deejays trying to avoid the babytalk voice, speaking with a medium female pitch is quite sufficient.

Thoughts?

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