emphasising prepositions

When I was in college, it was fashionable to use unnecessary words to feign the speech patterns of a drug addict. Like, ya know, man, like we, heh heh, yeah, wow man, like this guy, dig, this guy.... That sort of thing passed for profound wisdom at one time. Thankfully, those days passed into oblivion quickly, but it was, and remains, fun to talk like that from time to time just to sound like a bad immitation of the Easy Rider soundtrack. Far out, man, like ya know, hey dig, freedom man, yeah, heh heh, whoooaah brother, heh heh, dig....

I don't know any drug addicts who say "heh heh". :-o

I've noticed that some american women i meet tend to sing instead of talking. Has anyone else noticed this?

I notice a lot of Scottish women doing this at the weekend after midnight.

Yes Sadie, not just American women, English women too: if they're receptionists or work for a call centre specifically. The phrase: "How I may be of help?" seems to have a different note attached to each word.

That how Jennifer Annison speaks in just about every role she plays, but she adds a little whine as well.

I hate "up-speak"...that annoying middle-class habit of emphasising the last part of a sentence, as if it's a question - "Yesterday I went to the PARK? and for a couple of hours we fed some DUCKS?" It's driving me nuts. (What joke was that a punchline to?)

Yeah, that last one is, sadly, an American invention. It appears to have gained currency in the 90s, a time when actually believing anything put one in serious danger of being criticized. Since the objective of all human life was believed to be to avoid controversy at all costs, people began to glorify tentativeness in everyday speech. Emphasizing the last word in a sentence in fact does make the sentence into a question, or at least that's the intention. For example, "You are fishing for salmon in the Thames." A declaratory sentence of doubtful veracity, but declaratory none the less. "You are fishing for salmon in the THAMES?" Clearly a question, probably followed by "Are you crazy?" or something to that effect. However, using the question form in a sentence which is clearly intended as a simply declaratory statement of fact is intended to innoculate the speaker from any responsibility for actually believing what he is saying in the event the listener disagrees with the statement. All hail the effects of political correctness. I have read that this phenomenon is rapidly dissappearing on American college campuses, but it will take a long time to erradicate the disease worldwide. Perhaps we should petition the WHO. (no emphasis intended)

Yes, it's a confidence thing, I think. As well as up-speak, there are the myriad verbal ticks which seem to ask for acknowledgement that the sentence is correct... ...you know what I mean? ...you see what I'm saying? ...innit? ...don't you think? "Like" seems to be a lack of confidence thing also. This is not what I want to say, it's LIKE what I want to say...I think. I'm pretty sure I say "like" too much, as well. Tommy from Space (L'pool indie popsters, did "Female of the Species") says "and things like that" at the end of every sentence. Should we tell people how awful it sounds? Or is that tight?

Skeeter - Isn't that just how Chandler from Friends speaks?

The question sound at the end is very non-committal, I noticed it started around me about 10 years ago and was puzzled at first. It is definitely american in origin, and even sounds american coming from british lips. A typical example is if a friend said " on the train journey there was this drunken? guy telling me about his past?" What she really wants to say is "on the train there was this rancid stinking old wino breathing down my neck and getting on my nerves" but she's too keen on sounding tolerant and PC. But what she's doing is passing the buck so it's me who has the incorrect thoughts. This is a real person I'm talking about, and if I had told this same story using the honest line, she wouldn't have told me off but would have pulled a face as if to say "let he who is without sin .........." I don't do it, but I do say all the boring vaguenesses which will make a sentence longer and no more to the point . Like , sort of , kind of, you know, whatever.

Who's Chandler and what's Friends? But yes, I hate the up-speak thing too. But AS to the preposition thing, I saw it ON the telly, IN a documentary about a woman training people IN retail management...and so on.. It makes you want to bash their heads with a brick and say "talk properly!" But politeness forbids that. But I suppose you're right, we all do it or something like it to some extent. But I will never ever do up-speak or inappropriate emphasis. My nearest and dearest have instructions to put me down if I do.