It’s a really interesting language.

Uptalking seems to be almost exclusively a white thing.

Which may explain why some would so willingly see uptalking as acceptable but reject ebonics in a heartbeat.

My gut reaction anyway.

hehe…

Not all uptalking is to speak without conviction or intelligence, but uptalking’s rising intonations are prevalent in the inarticulate sloppy speech of intellectual laziness.

Perhaps Craig Ferguson has a better finger on why this postmodern way of communicating has become a cultural norm because of our society’s deification of youth: http://bit.ly/16WFfP

Final rises have been around forever; it’s not a “Clueless” trend.

The folks who love Mali’s video have made the mistake of thinking that uptalking is cool and hip, when it is actually nothing more than a way to communicate.

Becoming aware of bias doesn’t get rid of bias. It just gets rid of one conscious bias with the help of another unconscious one.

Becoming aware of one’s ‘naming and shaming’ doesn’t keep you ‘naming and shaming’. It just keeps you from naming and shaming the same people.

Avoiding blameworthy mockery seems more a function of being reasonable in being biased and in naming and shaming than in not having requisite scientific knowledge.

Are we running out of actual prejudices out there so we have to invent new ones?

The article provides some great analysis of the valid form, but it doesn’t apply to 99% of people who talk like this.

2. It also seems to me that relativism-disguised-as-epistemological-humility is completely validly mockable, which in my opinion was the main point of the poem (rather than mocking “uptalking” per se).

Probably because, in her experience, the guys she knew did NOT speak with conviction or have strong opinions about many things.

I’d put her desire and Mali’s criticism in the same boat.

Your audience should have a TREMENDOUS influence on HOW you communicate, and the quality of your communication is utterly dependent on your ability to communicate in their vernacular.

Personally, among my friends, I’ve noticed what he’s saying to be true.

This whole experience has been a barrel of fun. Where do you come across this stuff?!?!

Reminds me of something I dug up my name to see it, but be warned, there is on the site of an acquaintance of yours. (Fire and Knowledge)

(Click on my name to see what I’m referring to, but be warned, it’s long and mildly vulgar, if I remember correctly.)

I love this blog!

that article does nothing to change the fact that you’ve got to take into consideration who you’re talking to, the cultural context you’re in, and what both the words and the tones you use mean in that context to your audience. otherwise, you won’t do well in communication.

and to give you a bit of ethos, i’m a 22-year-old recent college grad, so i’m from the generation where this is happening, though sometimes i’m ashamed of us.