For some reason, Uptalking doesn't bother me. I really think that it's done sometimes because people are wanting to feel like they have your attention when they're talking to you. I guess I can see validity in the argument that it shouldn't be used at a job interview or some similar situation since it might make a person sound unsure of themselves. And the professors in the drama dept. at the university where I worked were always trashing "Uptalking"; they had really uncomplimentary things to say about it: "it makes you sound ignorant, etc." Which I don't agree with.
But the "Vocal Fry" thing? OMG, I can't stand it and I shouldn't let it bother me, I know, I know. As one young woman put it, her male co-workers would pay more attention to what she said when she used the vocal fry; I guess it would startle these guys enough to get their attention on what she was saying rather than what she looked like. So I keep telling myself, "You can stand this; it's a feminist issue." And I think the Vocal Fry of recent years is maybe a descendant of what they used to call the "New York Honk" (IIRC) back in the 1970's. (Think Meryl Streep, William F. Buckley, Jr., etc.; kind of raspy; in fact, Dustin Hoffman said when he was a young man, he tried to talk like Buckley to impress his dates since he thought it made him sound upper-class and intelligent.) It was considered to be the way that upper-class New Yorkers spoke. Aw, human language, accents, and dialects: so interesting.
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