The Perfect Voice

There is nothing worse to hear, at 7:40 am in the morning- on a relatively quiet commuter train – when you are trying to get some sleep, than the ring of the cell phone and then the annoying voice of someone planning out her nail salon appointment and talking about last night’s American Idol results. But I wonder if I would mind it less if the person had a “nice” voice? I think I would prefer someone with a subtle Southern drawl. I won’t enjoy the abhorrent acoustic craziness of a hillbilly, but I think I wouldn’t mind the amble pace and round sounds of the Southern land. I know for sure I would rather listen to that then the long ounnn sounds of lounga island [Long Island] accents or the sharp ahhh of the Baastan [Boston] accents. I even prefer the Southern drawl to the supposed “neutral” tone of the West Coast.

But what do I know? It looks like the Brits have the best voice. Recently, in a study commissioned by British Post Office Telecom, linguists have compiled the perfect male and female voice. Besides having British accent the voices were created “based on the combination of tone, speed, frequency, words per minute, and intonation.” After, listening to the voices I can confirm the voices are indeed a pleasure to listen to.

So are you wondering what this voice sounds like? Well find out for yourself though this bbc.com article. And next time you are trying to sleep on the train, bus, subway, or plane and you hear someone talking about his/her botox procedure gone wrong just imagine they are speaking in the perfect voice and things may not be so bad.

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