A recent, irritating speech trend: trying to sound over "professional" on YouTube

[uid15]

Would someone with some experience of phonetics and linguistics, please explain to me what it is I am about to describe:

It is mainly young people who do this these days, noticably they are mostly "millenials" and very often Brits, have this VERY irritating speech inflection "ah-where-ah they-ah speak-uh uh-like-uh this-UH" - I have an example, there are MANY more but I won't go hunting for them. It seems as if the person is parroting what they (think) is "sounding professional" by HUGELY HUGELY over-pronouncing their words, leaving far too long a gap between them, leaving the words sounding TOO formed and finished, and breaking the flow of their speech. THEY ARE VERY, VERY LARGELY "marketing types" - that's a distinct commonality which I have observed.

"It-ah, sounds-uh, like-uh ah-this-ah"

Man, it drives me NUTS, and not many things do with relation to speech (apart from rushed, mumbling or quiet speech.)

Who on earth started this silly trend? They must think it sounds "professional" - it just sounds stupid.

Here's the example, and if you can tell me what this is called, I'd "uh-appreciate-uh ah-it-uh"

Thank you:

 

[TechGod]

I've never really noticed that.

 

[Tomorrow]

Is there a particular part of the video where he does what you're talking about? I'm not going to watch a 6-minute video to try to hear something that may or may not be apparent to me.

I listened to the first 30 seconds and found nothing wrong with it.

 

[heehee]

uh-i-uh-have-uh-no-uh-idea-uh-what-uh-you-uh-are-uh-referring-uh-to.

 

[mobilehaathi]

Hemming and hawing is not professional.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Are such speech patterns perhaps an attempt to sound deliberately informal?

As an aside, I listened to (and watched) two and a half minutes of the video, and it struck me as a perfectly fine review of the product in question. Actually, I cannot see (or hear?) anything wrong with it.

Perhaps the OP would care to specify the exact place on the video where this irritating form of speech occurs.

 

[Gutwrench]

I didn't hear anything like the op described. You can tell from the guy's accent he's obviously ESL. You shouldn't hold that against him.

 

[Plutonius]

Professional is getting paid for an action. What does professional speech sound like ?

 

[kch50428]

Professional is getting paid for an action. What does professional speech sound like ?

Ever listen to a TV presenter on a news show? That is professional speech.

 

[rocknblogger]

I hear what the OP is describing but it's actually pretty minimal in this video. He probably could have found a better example. It's actually very difficult for the average person to not use uh and um between words. It's a way of pausing to quickly think about or consider what they're going to say next.

It can be eliminated with practice and discipline. Bloggers can edit their audio recordings to remove all that where with a video it's much harder to do.

 

[Plutonius]

Ever listen to a TV presenter on a news show? That is professional speech.

The ones I listen to speak normally. Do you have an example ?

 

[phrehdd]

We live in a new world where videos like this one are to be praised not chided for the oh, uh, um insertions by the speaker. People are sharing their experiences and knowledge and are not trained to be public speakers.

I do admit disliking when there are inserts into statements, monologues etc. that include "you know what I'm saying" or "man" or the most used, "like."

On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the worst, this guy gets a 9.8. He barely has these insertions to fill space or collect his thoughts compared to many many others on Youtube and elsewhere.

 

[BernyMac]

Professional is getting paid for an action. What does professional speech sound like ?

This, as spoken by Morgan Freeman Okay maybe not so much as speech but a narration...but man, it sounds like butter on warm biscuit during a cold snowy morning, doesn't it?


"Sometimes it makes me sad, though... Andy being gone. I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up DOES rejoice. But still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they're gone. I guess I just miss my friend."

 

[CooperBox]

I could see nothing wrong with the linked video, especially any over-pronouncing or other exaggerated speaking anomalies. In fact I rate it quite highly!
On the other hand I could (but won't) link to some presentation videos which positively make me cringe.