1686 Fried Vocals

Scientists study the weirdest things. Now it’s that women are adopting vocal patterns once thought to be vocal disorders. Speaking in such a way that their voices crack in the low end of their vocal registers.
All right. Studying growly voices. Because, you know, finding a cure for antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis is too boring.
A recent study noted the prevalence of certain females ending their sentences with a crackly and gravelly voice. Sort of an imitation of a sexy Brittany Spears.
Folks imitating pop stars? How extraordinary.
What's really extraordinary? This aberration has an official scientific name. Vocal fry.
Yep, there are three main speech ranges. Falsetto on the high end, modal in the normal mid-range, and vocal fry on the lower end. Modal apparently includes soprano, alto, tenor, bass and baritone.
That's not all. Researchers in the study bandied about other technical terms, like "creak" when referring to the tone. "There are languages that use creak as part of the phonemic system," said one scientist, "The chances of it leading to vocal damage are very minimal."
Another pointed out "...the popular-music station on her teenage son's dial features "creaky" announcers, but she does not hear vocal fry on National Public Radio, which targets an older audience."
The article said, "Two speech-language pathologists trained to identify voice disorders evaluated the speech samples. They marked the presence or absence of vocal fry by listening to each speaker's pitch and two qualities called jitter and shimmer—variation in pitch and volume, respectively."
Creak, jitter, shimmer and vocal fry. It all sounds so frivolous. Maybe that's why scientists used to use Latin...
I guess I'm not that scientific. Or concerned. I think it sounds like what it's meant to sound like—sexy.
So, sorry scientists, I would like fries with that.
America, ya gotta love it.