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Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

vocal fry en · NOUN

Pronunciation

Etymology

From the resemblance of the noise to the sound of hot fat sputtering in a skillet.

Meanings

  1. (uncountable) A low creaky vocal vibration caused by rapid vibration of the vocal chords, common in some languages such as Finnish. In English, often associated with older Received Pronunciation and more recent North American speech patterns.
    • Some individuals have overlooked the fact that at such low pitch their voices fade to inaudibility at the ends of sentences, or scrape down to vocal fry. 1975, Hilda B. Fisher, Improving voice and articulation, page 158:
    • Vocal fry is safe as long as you do not do it too loudly or for too long. 2014, Matthew Edwards, So You Want to Sing Rock 'n' Roll: A Guide for Professionals, →ISBN, page 112:
    • Pop singers, such as Britney Spears, slip vocal fry into their music as a way to reach low notes and add style. 2011 December 9, Marissa Fessenden, “'Vocal Fry' Creeping Into U.S. Speech”, in Science:
    • It is perhaps easiest to see the superimposition of vocal fry, so we will begin with this behavior. 2004, Lloyd M. Hulit, Straight Talk on Stuttering, →ISBN, page 55:
    • Vocal fry or creaky voice refers to a voice quality characterized by irregular glottal opening and low pitch. It occurs in diverse languages and is prevalent in American English, where it is used not only to mark phrase finality, but also sociolinguistic factors and affect. 2022, Bronya Roni Chernyak, Talia Ben Simon, Yael Segal, Jeremy Steffman, Eleanor Chodroff, “DeepFry: Identifying Vocal Fry Using Deep Neural Networks”, in Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, →DOI, archived from the original on 15 Apr 2024, pages 3578–3582:
    • Yes, you can detect a bit of Johansson’s clear, low tone and a hint of vocal fry, though at times that just sounds like some grainy digitalization. 2024 May 20, Alissa Wilkinson, “What We Lose When ChatGPT Sounds Like Scarlett Johansson”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 16 Jun 2024:

Synonyms

popcorning · creaky phonation · glottal fry · creaky voice

Translations (8)

ca crepitació (vibration of the vocal chords) · es laringalización (vibration of the vocal chords) · cmn 氣泡音 /气泡音 (vibration of the vocal chords) · pl vocal fry (vibration of the vocal chords) · es voz laringalizada (vibration of the vocal chords) · ca laringalització (vibration of the vocal chords) · nl vocal fry (vibration of the vocal chords) · fi narina (vibration of the vocal chords)