Since I started working in a corporate setting I have been exposed to more Sibilance than I have witnessed since I got locked in a fitting room at Contempo Casuals at the Burnsville Mall. Unbelievable, Bitch Sibilance is perceptible even with the deployment of noise-cancelling headphones. The machine-destroying "frequency" in Terminator: Salvation must have been a recording of a twenty-something corporate go-getter describing her ideal fall work wardobe, or ordering a low-cal lunch. Native speakers of Castilian Spanish would grow pale and harried at the sound.
As far as I know the term 'Bitch Sibilance" was coined by my friend B. She works in the shoe department at Macy's, where a flocks of these women congregate at all times of the year, filling the air with their cries of "Oh My God
--that is ssssso cu-ute!" So she should know.
The main problem with Bitch Sibilance, aside from the way it makes me drop to the floor writhing and repeatedly boxing in my own ears, is that it is pure affectation. No-one was raised in a household where Bitch Sibilance was the primary or even secondary language spoken.
What is the reason for assuming Bitch Sibilance? Like any fake accent, it doesn't just come out of nowhere. I think young women do it because they (wrongly)think it is feminine and classy. And they do it because they hear other young women doing it. Ssssimian ssssee, sssssimian do. But the most compelling reason I've heard so far comes from my friend T., who points out that it's a way of softening speech. These ladiesssss apparently see a need to be taken less seriously in their day-to-day lives. I'm all for employing a little of the old suaviter in modo, but the other part of that is fortiter in re.
And that's one to grow on.
I hate bitch sibilance. I just want to dope slap women and girls who put on that stupid, degrading affectation.
ReplyDeleteI usually like to write in coffee shops. Coffee shops usually have a din, but for some reason I can hear the hissing bitch sibilance over it. It makes me want to roll around on the ground clutching my bleeding ears. It reminds me of a snake and I don't know if it just a cultural or biblical reference, but I associate these "hissers" as being false, patronizing and untrustworthy. I feel better after reading your friend's theory that they are just trying to sound softer.
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