Career Change: Upspeak is Driving Me Crazy!

Please, stop talking in upspeak!

I have been sitting in dozens of TFA sessions over the past 5 weeks and the entire TFA staff (with the exception of my awesome adviser) all talk with this annoying upspeak. If you've never heard upspeak, be grateful. What is upspeak? According to the urban dictionary, upspeak is: an affliction affecting many in today's society (not just teenagers) where a person makes a question out of a sentence that isn't a question (or more simply speaks "up" at the end of a sentence).  But within TFA, it's even more insidious than that - they actually upspeak in the middle of sentences! Oh my good god! It is the worse!!! I'm not sure that I can do it justice in print, but it goes something like this: "So today?, we'll be talking? about how your students? can better understand? the content? that you're teaching?"  When reading that, hear the voice go up with every question mark and put a very slight pause before starting the next part of the sentence!  And that's what I've been listening to for 5 flipping weeks! ARGH!

I'm not sure how this maddening practice got started but as an actor, a grammar Nazi and a linguist snob, I want to bash my head into a brick wall every time I hear it.  The worse part is that it is now spreading out from the TFA staff to the TFA corps members.  I'm hearing it all over the place - at Temple, at my school, on the yellow school bus to and from school. It's like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and I'm Dr. Miles Bennell.  I haven't yet decided which is worse - upspeak or the 'like/ya know' issue!  Oddly enough, my street smart African American students speak better English than the so called educated TFA'ers. 

On a brighter note, 4 days until the end of institute and 6 days until I'm home sleeping in my very own bed!  Yay!!!