Gay Code Switchers

My "World News Tonight" is so extremely popular because I look and sound--and am!-- so natural.

He seems to have had the tantrum video scrubbed from the Internet, but check out how much higher his pitch is and how lispy he is in this clip. It's markedly different from his news presentation.

Who has seen David’s dick? Someone must have.

Here's a clip of him while he was in college. The male anchor discussing the video says, "How cow! The voice a little different, the voice A LOT different!"

I like him, think he's a natural, don't care who he does in the sack and I don't fucking know what OP is going on about. Shut up!

I wonder if she slapped them

I wish there were another term besides code switching. It’s grating.

R5 I don't care who he does, either. I just find the code switching interesting. I feel like I always speak the same way, but when I was 18, I worked at a customer service desk of a clothing store and my coworkers always laughed at me when I spoke into the PA system because I dropped the pitch of my voice without realizing it. I thought I was just enunciating but everyone saw it as me trying to sound more authoritative.

R7 I considered saying "passing," but that term implies some kind of shame-based self-rejection, whereas code switching pretty neutrally indicates interacting differently with different people.

Tangent: Muir said his news show averaged nine million people per night last week.

Maddow and Hannity have the highest-rated cable news shows and they both average around three million.

I'm surprised and a little encouraged that three times as many people are watching broadcast nightly news as are watching cable opinion news.

Don talks about codeswitching both black & gay or acting white in documentary "Do I Sound Gay?"

Thanks, R11, I didn't remember Don Lemon is in that.

I randomly landed on David Sedaris saying everyone calls him ma'am on the phone. Hashtag me too! It really upset me when I was young but now I think it's funny. It's almost always a customer service rep who says it and they almost always ask for a name at the end of the call. It's fun to clock their embarrassment after being given a man's name following five minutes of them calling me ma'am.

My mother once said to me, "You don't sound like a woman! Well...no, you sound like a menopausal woman." And I think that's pretty accurate.

I don't mind that I sound like a woman on the phone because I sound like a big, humorless woman on the phone. The people always get serious and say, "Yes, ma'am".

The advantage of being able to sound like a woman over Theo híñenos that you can impersonate your mom when you’re trying to run business for her (social security, loans, Medicare, phone scams, etc) that she at this point is no longer able or willing yo run, without having yo put her on the phone with an agent to give me permission to represent her. She loves that I can pass as her, because she hates dealing with customer service crap.

Theo híñenos = the phone

Yo = to

"Theo Híñenos."

"Theo Híñenos? Who is that?"

""Theo Híñenos is the phone."

...would work equally well as AbFab dialogue or spy movie dialogue.

My gay professionals code switch from time to time. Heck, many straight professionals do, too. Business personae to a more casual one.

[quote] Here's a clip of him while he was in college.

He looks exactly the same as today.

[quote] Who has seen David’s dick? Someone must have.

I can’t imagine he has one.

Sam Cushing posted a video about his "gay voice" and the person he had on with him mentioned code switching.

Great thread, OP!

This is just like the WWII code talkers!

David Muir is the new Alan Turing! Able to lisp over tall buildings OR mosey through them at the pace of a self-satisfied straight guy. Fighting for truth(ishness), justice, and the American right to Instagram thirst traps and spray tans. 💪

[quote] In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation or situation. Multilinguals (speakers of more than one language) sometimes use elements of multiple languages when conversing with each other. Thus, code-switching is the use of more than one linguistic variety in a manner consistent with the syntax and phonology of each variety

Alternating the tone of your voice is not code switching.

David Muir sounds perfectly fine to me, he's gorgeous, and he has a great big wonderful penis. It's as clear as the prominent sexy nose on his face. I wouldn't say no to David.

I overheard a now ex (who had aged out of being a twink before we met) on the phone with his girlfriends/coke buddies and speaking in extreme gay voice, one notch down from "yaaaaaassssss mama mmmmmmkrrrrrrrrr?". I've got to think he was being his authentic self with me and a put-on with them, but who knows. It was like he was speaking in tongues.

It's difficult to say with Muir or any TV anchor because they all put on that newscastery voice and cadence when the camera is on.

r25 social & cultural code switching, dear.

Spanglish is an example of linguistic code switching. Putting some bass in your voice is not.

When did news readers become celebrities in and of themselves, whose lives are open for intimate discussion and dissection? I don’t even know if Walter Cronkite was married or not or if he preferred boxers or briefs and I was just fine with that.

there's more to gay voice than just the pitch of your voice I think... I think it counts as code switching

Years ago I saw Clooney on an early guest spot he did on Murder She Wrote in the 80s....his voice sounded significantly higher. Guess he learned to butch it up

Why does David Muir have such a terrible fucking haircut? He looks ridiculous.

John Travolta is supposedly super queeny in person

People who are tied to the linguistic aspect of code switching are missing the point and being pedantic. The point is dipping in and out from one type of cultural norm to another, changing the way one communicates to relate better with a gay audience or a straight audience, and so on. That's clear in this discussion.

And yes, R32, there is more to it than just the pitch. Oftentimes there's a lisp or sibilant 's,' even if it's subtle, and there's also often a wavering quality to the voice, what might possibly be some version of a dipthong or a different type of 'musicality' (upspeak, etc.) that most straight men do not speak with.

Also called "Turning it OFF and ON." There's nothing duplicitous about it really. I think many people do this on some level, right?

Think of it as talking to your mother, who grew up during the Civil Rights era, and refuses to hear anything improper coming out of your mouth (ON). And then chillin' with your people in relaxed, judgment-free, no consequences situations.

"ON" would also include interviews, conversations at work, meeting people for the first time. etc.

R26 Photos?

Henry Cavill and Sam Heughan do this.

R37 I didn't imply that it's deceitful. As I said, I used to unwittingly change the pitch of my voice when speaking into a PA system, totally unaware I was doing it. Although I'm certain broadcasters are aware when they are using their "on-air" voice.

And again, I used the term "code switching" instead of "passing" because the former simply implies changing the way a person interacts, whereas the latter implies "trying to get away with something" deceitfully.

Oprah speaking like a broadcaster to white ladies and like a Southern black country woman to black people is code switching.

Rachel Dolezal is passing.

[quote] People who are tied to the linguistic aspect of code switching are missing the point and being pedantic. The point is dipping in and out from one type of cultural norm to another, changing the way one communicates to relate better with a gay audience or a straight audience, and so on. That's clear in this discussion. And yes, [R32], there is more to it than just the pitch. Oftentimes there's a lisp or sibilant 's,' even if it's subtle, and there's also often a wavering quality to the voice, what might possibly be some version of a dipthong or a different type of 'musicality' (upspeak, etc.) that most straight men do not speak with.

OP is missing his own point by including David Muir or any other people who are simply raising or lowering the tone of their voices.

There was a time when all newscasters were trained in using The Mid Atlantic Accent, was that code switching?

R41 Absolutely not. When the cameras are down and he is chatting casually with familiar people, he changes his manner significantly. His hands flail about, the pitch of his voice goes higher but his voice also becomes more 'colorful' with greater, less flat inflection.

We all have seen this happen with people we know. It's similar to how many black women not only change their dialects and vocabulary but also their inflection and the way they move their heads and bodies when speaking with other black people versus interacting with most white people, especially in a professional setting.

Decades ago, these changes were openly laughed at and derided but now the changes are seen as a natural and normal behavioral pattern when interacting with different cultural norms.

[quote] [R41] Absolutely not. When the cameras are down and he is chatting casually with familiar people, he changes his manner significantly. His hands flail about, the pitch of his voice goes higher but his voice also becomes more 'colorful' with greater, less flat inflection. We all have seen this happen with people we know. It's similar to how many black women not only change their dialects and vocabulary but also their inflection and the way they move their heads and bodies when speaking with other black people versus interacting with most white people, especially in a professional setting. Decades ago, these changes were openly laughed at and derided but now the changes are seen as a natural and normal behavioral pattern when interacting with different cultural norms.

All of the news broadcasters sit at desk and read the new. None of them flail their arms or wildly gesticulate.