this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2025
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Is this like the "queens voice" people used to put on when they answered the phone in the pre-mobile times? We used to laugh at my mum and dad for putting on a posh accent when answering the phone. I'm not aware of people doing that these days but perhaps they do
Not an accent, but my girlfriend absolutely raises the pitch of her voice on phone calls and when meeting strangers.
I get it, I've noticed my own pitch changing based on circumstances. I (also a woman) raise my pitch with strangers too. It's like a subconscious "please be kind to me" sort of thing. Yet with my family, which is mostly men/boys, my voice goes lower. I don't think about it at the time, it just happens.
I automatically adjust my accent, intensity and vocabulary according to who I'm talking to. Not a thing I think about, but I started doing it when I was in tech support and customer service 20-30 years ago. Same kinda defensive thing, "Hey! I'm just like you and I'm on your side!"
Never thought about women pitching their voices higher. I've experienced that, makes all the sense in the world!
I used to have weekly band practice in a more rural part of our country, one I grew up in but don't live anymore. Every week when I got home from practice it took me a day to lose my old accent again lol
Very cool, but what's your reasoning?
Haha, I do think the "raising pitch around strangers" thing is a sort of protective behavior. Like a cuteness reflex of sorts, trying to show that I mean no harm and hope none will come to me. That's what I figure, at least. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of women subconsciously do the same thing.
Around family, I'm not sure. It's possible it's a throwback to being a kid and being told my voice was "whiny." Or it could be a side-effect of the deeper voices around me being louder, so I talk that way to make my voice clearer in the mess. I wish I knew, but that's what I reason it probably is.
(I know you were probably joking, but autistic brains gonna autist.)
I hope, rather than going back to your normal voice, you do extra bass with family.
That was a real accent, known as Received Pronunciation, and used by BBC presenters and old boys everywhere until it fell out of favour in the sixties and seventies as an object of ridicule. Actual posh people now don’t like to stand out like that and sound more-or-less the same as lower middle class.
Oh interesting. I wonder if that is why adverts, even in the 90's, had silly accents.
I was watching some old British adverts a few weeks ago. I thought to myself that I don't remembering them sounding the way they do. Might be what helped knock my local accent out of me.