{"id":396674,"date":"2010-03-06T08:46:15","date_gmt":"2010-03-06T13:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=2163"},"modified":"2010-03-06T08:46:15","modified_gmt":"2010-03-06T13:46:15","slug":"annals-of-uptalk-the-python-wrestler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/396674","title":{"rendered":"Annals of uptalk: the python wrestler"},"content":{"rendered":"

A New York Times Room for Debate<\/em> piece on “Killing Pythons, and Regulating Them<\/a>” (3\/5\/2010) supplies another piece of anecdata for my on-going quest<\/a> to document the North American varieties of uptalk. This one is from the sound track of a YouTube video <\/a> about a python wrangler in central Florida.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

At the beginning, there’s a passage with a long sequence of final rises, ending with a final fall:<\/p>\n

\n

so we’re going to go see if we can find this guy \/
\nuh there’s a main area that’s he’s been seen over and over again \/
\nand usually with pythons \/
\nthey stay in one area \/
\nthey’re- they are territorial \/
\nunless it comes time \/
\nfor breeding season \/
\nso I’ve been out there once before \/
\nand now we’re going to go out again \/
\nand see what we find.<\/p>\n

After he wades out into the swamp and wrestles the python into submission, his explanation also starts with a couple of final-rising declaratives. Then for comparison, we get some yes-no questions, which are also rising — in pretty much the same way as the statements, though ending a bit higher. And then he ends the segment with a fall again.<\/p>\n

\n

that was a burmese python \/
\nvery mad, very angry snake \/
\nhave you seen my face? \/
\nand look how much he has on me? \/
\nyou see that? \/
\nthat’s from that little piece
\nright there.<\/p>\n

As I’ve noted with respect to other examples in the past<\/a>, there’s no reason to think that these final rises are always (or often, or perhaps ever) indications of feminine insecurity and need for reassurance.<\/p>\n

[Update — Ben Zimmer notes another set of examples, in Terry Gross’s Fresh Air interview with William Hurt (audio here<\/a>, transcript here<\/a>). For instance, here is Hurt’s description of his role in The Yellow Handkerchief<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\n

um
\nmy character is blue collar \/
\num
\noriginally from probably Kentucky \/
\nuh ran into trouble \/
\num
\nworks as a steam-fitter \/
\non oil rigs \/
\nand um
\nmoved to Louisiana after he ran into drug trouble \/
\ntried to make a new life \/ met someone, fell in love with them \/-
\ngot into an accidental bit of trouble which put him in prison for a long time and he takes a road trip
\nwith some young people after he gets out.<\/p>\n

Again, a series of final rises, ending with a few transitional phrases and ending low. Hurt uses similar patterns now and then elsewhere in this interview, e.g.<\/p>\n

\n

um and I spent one night in- in- in maximum security there \/
\nuh I think I’m the only person who electively has done that \/
\nI think someone else tried to but
\nscreamed and gave up at midnight \/
\num I spoke with every member on that- on that row \/
\num who’s incarcerated in an eight foot by four foot cell twenty three hours a day for the rest of their lives \/<\/p>\n

But it’s by no means his default approach — compare this interview<\/a> with Chuck The Movie Guy.<\/p>\n

Nor do other Americans generally use non-terminal rises. There are none, for example, in the long\u00a0 monologue<\/a> attributed to the Pentagon shooter John Patrick Bedell, who uses final falls throughout, e.g.<\/p>\n

The door is open for studies of who (among speakers of North American English) actually uses which kinds of final rises when.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A New York Times Room for Debate piece on “Killing Pythons, and Regulating Them” (3\/5\/2010) supplies another piece of anecdata for my on-going quest to document the North American varieties of uptalk. This one is from the sound track of a YouTube video about a python wrangler in central Florida. At the beginning, there’s a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4144,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-396674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}