I am resurrecting this old thread because This American Life yesterday featured "complaints to NPR on the preponderance of vocal fry amongst their radio voices." The story was this: a lot of female NPR voices display vocal fry. Many listeners complain to NPR about that. When NPR conducted a poll they found that it was only older listeners who were bugged by it.

Moral of the story: it's a trend among the youth, us old fogies don't count, just shut up you all.

I will remember this the next time our NPR station comes to me with their hand out. Apparently, even Ira Glass has some fry in his voice at times. Mimicking teenage girls, Ira?

Look, I get teenage herd behavior and bonding rituals and etc, but these are professional radio voices. Why they feel they are exempt from Standard American Speech is beyond me. Even acknowledging that Standard American Speech changes over time, this is non-standard. This is cliquish. It is stupid.

A bit of Googling shows all kinds of defense of this problem, putting it down to female discrimination in the workplace. Way to go girls, give yourself yet another handicap in the workplace