What can be done about rising rising inflection levels?

OK Boomer

Or rather....

OK Boomer?

Wrong website, let alone forum. Daily Heil's over that way ------>

I agree. There’s a woman at work who does this with every single sentence, like, ‘well I bought a bag of potatoes the other day?’
She’s a nice person but bloody annoying with this!

Australian question intonation?

Been around for years?

I, for one, blame Pri-ey Patel?

I guess adopting and encouraging a great diversity in culture changes the way language is used...

I’d either swerve it or if that wasn’t possible have a vaccination?

Then someone asks me a question….

You sure about that.

Same here - I find it intensely annoying.

I've had a similar situation recently where questions and statements were mixed up. They came from someone in their early 40s and it was the first time I'd had encountered it as far as I could remember 🤔.
I need to expand my abilities 😭

I came home from uni once having started talking like that.

I had no idea.

My dad set me straight, why are you bloody talking like that?

Then I realised and consciously stopped doing it.

maybe the people doing this don't realise they are doing it?

Just get over it, different accents and ways of speaking are what makes life interesting. Or do you think we should all be using Received Pronunciation?

It is annoying. I do it.
But it is also how language evolves. The chameleon effect is where we mimic other speakers.
If the language didn’t evolve we’d all be pronouncing English the way it is written and then where would we be?

I worked with an Australian girl who used to not only do it at the end of every single sentence, but sometimes mid-sentence too.

So every sentence? Sounded like two questions? Yeah?

Hel-lo? This should be in the annoyingly disproportionate thread.

Pfft, that’s not even an issue, I prefer people who ask a question in such a hypothetical way that they answer it themselves just before finishing the question 😁

This should be in the annoyingly disproportionate thread.

I couldn’t agree more?

I thought it was called 'upspeak'.  I do find it mildly irritating, but I don't come across that many people who do it, so it's not really a problem.  To my ears it makes the speaker sound as if they lack confidence and are really unsure about everything, because everything they say sounds like a question.  Isn't this just something impressionable teens and twenty somethings do, then grow out of it?

Zone OFF? Really? Is that, like, even, a thing?

It’s not new though is it? I went out with an Australian girl in the late 80’s? She spoke like that all the time?

Definitely an Aussie thing that has spread. My Mrs does it after living over there? Annoys the ever living cr4p out of me. Cue pernickety me correcting grammar and diction; which is always welcome.

I'm with Upspeak on this one. I work with a lot of young post grad students, and hear this a lot. I'd put this mannerism down to a simple, youthful, lack of confidence.

Zone OFF? Really? Is that, like, even, a thing?

No it's over, and out.

I would put it down to stupidity and the inability to think clearly

Why do Australians go up at the end of a sentence?
It's only logical, it was going down at the beginning of one which got most of them there🤷‍♂️

I don't know?

I’d put this mannerism down to a simple, youthful, lack of confidence.

Yes, it conveys uncertainty about what is being said, and perhaps seems some confirmation or validation from the listener?

Recently? The Californian rising inflection gained traction here from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and that was 25 years ago.

It's not an Australian thing..... it's a young-people thing.

In my view, related to confidence.

The Californian rising inflection gained traction here from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and that was 25 years ago.

This, but see also: Dawson's creek, The OC, gossip girl - basically whatever the American Holyoaks-equivalent is for the current crop of impressionable teenagers.

This seems to be my answer to pretty much every problem with the UK these days but you should move to Norway (or consider campaigning to adopt Norwegian policies).

In Norway inflection can and does rise and fall several times at any point in a single sentence whether a question is being asked or not.

Norway also shows that you don't even have to be in the EU to implement this policy successfully.

It comes from soap operas, the inflection thing coincided with Neighbours, Home and Away and the 'I was like' thing came in with Friends. It does make conversation very samey and boring.

Given year-on-year inflection is now running at over 9%, I understand ONS estimates are that within 5 years the end of sentences will be outside the audible range for many people.

PS wasn’t the Californian version referred to somewhat derogatively by other Californians as “valley girl”?

I recall Frank Zappa taking the mick.

There's a guy I work with who thinks in emails question marks are full stops.

Me: how long should the sides be?
Him: the sides are 500?
Me: I don't know that's what I'm asking.
Him: I've measured them?
Me: you're on site next to them. You said you'd measure them & let me know.
Him: I have measured them?
Me: aaaarrrrgggghhh.

He's mid 50s so its not just the kids.

Given year-on-year inflection is now running at over 9%, I understand ONS estimates are that within 5 years the end of sentences will be outside the audible range for many people.

Made me chuckle.

In Wales nearly every sentence sound like a question, bit in a non-annoying way. The exception is Newport where nothing ever sounds like a question because they ask a question by making a statement to see if you challenge it. It took me a while to get that one when I worked there.

Why do people feel the need to do this? Why can’t they just speak properly and adopt the conventions that we already have to support efficient verbal communication?

Lack of confidence or self-esteem perhaps is the answer.

When a friend started to speak with inflection to me with no reason I double up my inflection in my reply like Stewie (from Family guy) to see who could win the battle of inflection ... somehow they stopped after that. LOL!

I remember Stephen Fry (I think) railing against this on Room 101 in the 1990s. He called it Australian Question Intonation. If it was causing irritation back then then it's hardly something confined to the young today, no doubt some of the people doing it back then will be in their 40s now.

Surely, now we've left the EU, we can bring back hanging for this sort of thing?