Upspeak drives me nuts in the office. It is annoying enough to get situated beside a bevy of college girls loudly exclaiming every thought that pops in their head while enjoying dinner at a restaurant, but those who come into the workforce need to realize it kills their creditability among superiors and colleagues. There are several young people who have very strong habits of 'upspeak' ("lifting the end of every sentence, like literally!") where I work and even one male who has extreme vocal fry - every time he is on a call I want to give him a lozenge.

Mentors who wish to encourage less tentative speaking patterns and body language should consider responding positively and receptively to young associates' first attempts to express ideas. This rarely happens, since young associates are very often wrong in these first attempts. The response then exacerbates the problem.

I strongly disagree with Liz Sparrowe's comment earlier. The mannerisms listed as undesirable are common, not to women, but to status. They are not inherently feminine or a natural part of women's communication. Children, servants, and those of lower status in a power structure use these signals to avoid posing a challenge to the more powerful figures. These mannerisms, like lowering the gaze, shifting your weight, and other physical signals, have been made socially normative to women because they signal subservience. Just watch a woman who is confident in her status speak to someone who is obviously under her authority (for a gender-typed example, a young nanny speaking to small children) - these mannerisms disappear. Similarly, you will see many men in junior or lower-status roles use similar signals when interacting with a much more powerful person of either gender. If you want to rise in trust and authority within a group, it helps to signal confidence and high status with words and body language.

This article strongly suggests that women in the legal world and the work force generally should strive to sound more like men, and to lose the social conventions of female speech that exist in other areas of our society. It's also fairly ageist, implying that the way older women speak is substantively better than the way younger women do. Old feminism -- the kind of feminism that suggests males and females are essentially the same -- has taken a major hit in recent times, and has likely been bad for women. Women are different. Women speak differently. Allowing female conventions to take an equal place next to male conventions instead of attempting to eradicate them seems to me entirely more feminist, helpful, and exciting than the alternative.

I disagree with the last one. You sometimes need to ask "What about this approach?" for legitimate reasons that have nothing to do with putting yourself down.

Fine points, but the environment also has to be considered. For example, some women unconsciously speak quickly because men have a tendency to speak over them. I sometimes get the impression that men prefer it when women belittle themselves. Direct women are typed as overly-aggressive.

Where's the male speech-consciousness-raising?

In the end, though, I hate Valley-Girl-speak.

I'm very grateful indeed that women are urging women to be aware that these habits are not just a "style," and not anywhere near as appealing at work as they may be in a singles bar.

It's hard to be a man, wanting to encourage that improvement but unwilling to risk being seen as old, sexist, overly personal, hypercritical and/or condescending.

It used to be considered "a given" that one (not just actresses!) would work hard to eradicate flaws in one's speech that may feel comfortable but in fact impede professional communication. In a more formal time, Dan Rather went through hell to learn how to speak non-Texan, and no one hesitated to be insistent and judgmental about the need for that.

Avoiding weasel words and tentative tone is even more important.

Along with a zero knowledge of history, film history, records, telephones with rotary dials there is a decided bent toward speaking like ..".like, ugh, you know what I mean, don't ya"?
I don't know if any firms may ask people to visit a vocal coach, but I do not think it unreasonable. To rid oneself of bad inflection and perhaps slurred or garbled speech. I know of no better starter than watching an old movie with (hold the hanger) Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Olivia DeHaviland and Lauren Bacall all of whom, I believe had serious vocal training. I hate to say that with it's idealized version of life,old Hollywood should be the teacher here, but it was done for a reason: to be understood, to be commanding and take center stage. Vocal clarity, flexibility and control is increasingly important in a globalized business world, but it's a little thought of remedy in training a work force where mentioning someones actual voice as opposed to their inflection may raise problems. Being ever careful not to mention accents and regionalisms, there are ways to clarify speech, intonation and suddenly the owner of the voice will find they have a new tool (or weapon) that enables them to take complete command of any situation.

You are not alone in your distaste for "uptalk.." In her remarks at the recent Ms. JD conference, Vickie Pynchon, a dynamic speaker, gave similar advice.

I would add to Mohr's advice eliminating prefatory "I think" or "I believe" phrases. It's an obvious intro and also tends to somewhat weaken what follows. Granted, there may be times those qualifiers are appropriate, but be aware of overusing them.

Mohr is absolutely correct about slowing speech down. Also remember that deliberate pauses can add emphasis. Pausing after select words is part of what gives Bill Clinton's rhetoric such power.