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MISPLACED STRESS |
“We will be descending shortly into Denver,”
says the flight attendant, sounding very weird. People who have to
repeat announcements by rote—including radio station-break
announcers and others—often try to avoid sounding like monotonous
robots by raising and lowering the pitch of their voices at random and
stressing words not normally stressed: mostly prepositions and auxiliary
verbs. One has to sympathize; imagine having to repeatedly lecture a
plane full of people on seat-belt use when you know for a fact the only
adults on board likely not to know already how to fasten a buckle are
too demented to understand what you’re saying. But the absurd
sing-song into which many of these folks fall is both distracting and
irritating, making them sound like malfunctioning robots. Those
who speak in natural voices, stressing main nouns, verbs, and adjectives
where it makes sense, are much easier to listen to.
