Date:  Sat, 24 Jan 1998 15:49:25 -0500
From:  Beverly Flanigan <FLANIGAN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Almost about dialect

  The high tensed female voice is common here at OU too, but more
  prominently so in non-southern Ohioans, it seems to me. The pitch is
  high and the rate is so fast that often I cannot hear word segmentation
  and have to ask the speaker to slow down. Student announcers on the
  radio are among the worst (they've also never learned how to read aloud
  with anything like normal intonation and pausing). I associate the
  squeaky little-girl pitch with a desire to sound cute and "feminine" --
  a backlash from a (perceived) masculinizing of women? Horrors.
                         Beverly Flanigan
                         Ohio University