Voice awareness for non-voice users

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I'm not sure you should get such an easy pass on the "Ghetto Pimp" thing. I worked once with 3 people from the inner city of Detroit. 2 are now successful business owners. Both sounded pretty much "street"

Not true. Perhaps someone, in years of chat, announce to a friend that they are from eastern Scotland, and they grew up on a farm...let's say the friend asks, 'what do people from that area sound like compared to other Scottish people?"

Well...let's see you type that one out....you just can't. You'd have to HEAR a handful of Scottish people talk to understand the difference in vocal style, word use, slang, and whatnot...

I know this is a clear-cut example...but it illustrates my point.

How is someones Accent "revealing themselves" ?

I'm actually agreeing with you on the voice adds to how you get to know someone stuff.

But an accent is just a product of local speech patterns.

I know a LOT of long term partnerships, marriages and friendships which have stood the test of text/voice/cam/in person in varying degrees and from varying places.

Why would initially meeting someone using virtual technology in the first instance have to be less effective than via other means?

The mix is the same of people who have met asshats and psychos, and those who snagged a conversation one day and realised that as time passed more and more was said that the person had what they'd been looking for all along.

How is that automatically worse than meeting some guy in a bar and ending up with maybe your dream relationship or maybe a journey to hell for you both.

It isn't. And yes many do fall, but also some thrive. Just like anything else really.

These questions are entirely rhetorical.

Let's not forget of course that some accents are seen as SEXAH ...

Try and make your LAST sentence the belittling one...because then I'd actually read the rest.

I was not saying it was necessarily a bad thing that such online to RL relationships fall apart.

Merely that elements of text communication and voice communication and in person communication DO show different aspects of a person - which can lead to the end of a relationship that just wasn't going to happen RL.

Many relationships that were stagnant text only have blossomed because of phone calls and real life meetings as well.

In fact on that point I was agreeing with you and Michael.

And what about the disabled who can't speak or cannot speak well for a variety of reasons but feel they are better represented in text?

I hold no particular brief for the pro text or pro voice camps.

Sl is a fascinating study in the question of identity however.

Can one really get to know someone in a text only enviroment.?

I would contend that the answer is........partially.

Speaking as someone who has spent half their life with their nose in a book, can I say I have a complete knowledge of the Author from reading their work.??

Um......no.......I have only gotten to know their literary personality....not the totality of it.

Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey/Maturin series of Novels deal with themes of Heroism, Sacrafice, Friendship, Nobility..etc etc.

He wrote very persuasively about these qualities, as though with intimate understanding.

Should I be disappointed to find out, that these qualities were sorely lacking in the rest of his life???

Well.....as I never had or wanted a RL hookup with Mr O'Brien, this never became a pressing issue. In reading this series of books (20 of them) I felt I had really gotten to know this mind, perhaps it is more true to say, that I got to know the highly edited Literary construct part of his mind.

This raises an interesting question for SL.

If our communications remain text based, should I view my relationships here as a work of collaborative literary fiction ??

I wish to emphasise that I am placing no value judgements on this.

Some who use voice, may have good acting/rhetorical skills, which might place a relationship in the collaborative/improvised drama sphere.

Of course I do not know, the totality of the mind of my Butcher when I buy Lamb chops from him. We converse, have a mutually satisfying transaction, end of story.

But we do seem to invest a lot of emotion into our SL relationships, issues of trust, bonding, friendship, love, and hate are perennial themes on these forums.

Is SL a kind of Novel, where we are all co-creators.....or something deeper than that ?

Read the rest then, because most of the post agrees with one of your points.

I just think its lame for you to claim that theres only one way to say "I love you" in the written word - it flies in the face of the whole concept of love poetry, if nothing else.

I'll bet the businesses aren't in the pharmaceutical industry...or is it?

Listen...I'm not saying 'ghetto pimp' is a definite sign of ignorance or low intelligence...I'm saying that professionals tend to realize 'ghetto speak' isn't respected amongst other professionals, and usually they care enough to clean up their act, and speak in a more 'intelligent' and 'professional' manner...Obama is a perfect example, isn't he. He used to be an inner city kid...doing drungs, and shootin' the shit. Do you think for a moment, when he decided to go to law school that he kept his 'slang' and 'gutter talk?' Heck no...stereotypes exist for a reason.

People that choose to talk like, 'yo, man dis shit ain't right' says a lot about a person, their self-worth, their pride, and their environment. Screaming 'discrimination', 'judgment' about what I'm saying is avoiding the truth.

Now...all this aside. If you like who someone is in SL by their texts...through the years....that fantastic. That's awesome. I'm not saying this isn't cool, or OK. I'm just saying that someone's voice says a lot more about a person than what the 'choose' to write you given the time.

Thanks for the debate. I love it.

If some one is born in Austrailia...by their accent you can tell...then a smart sociologist or informed person, might be able to immediately deduce many things about them...

A smart, educated person can deduce a lot about a person from the region they grew up in...

If you meet someone face to face...it is completely more telling of who the person is compared to what the could write given the time to design a written persona...

I don't see why this is so hard to grasp. People can totally be someone else in a text-based virtual existence...but when you meet someone face to face, or hear the way the talk...there is no hiding behind time and written construction...

Now, I'm not talking about actors, or professional scitzos...who can be someone else in RL too...I'm talking about the standard, average case.

Having spent my formative years in a large Midlands city beginning with B, I'm keeping my mouth shut. Literally.

Might make more sense if you actually read my points though, since I didn't say that.










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On those businessmen:

One runs a Computer consulting company, the other a Computer store.

The adjusting speech to get respect thing is more *fitting in* so as to not face exactly the discrimination which the "Ghetto Pimp" comment alludes to.

The fact that someone does so is not an indicator of intelligence

Let me just say, I don't use voice and I have my reasons. They're good valid reasons, as are the reasons that other's choose to use it. It would be nice to know who is on voice or who isn't, but I can't say I've encountered any instances at all where someone asked me to use voice, so I'm not sure how much of a difference knowing who is chatting in voice would make to my enjoyment or non-enjoyment of SL. Addressing Michael's remarks about getting to know who someone is by hearing their voice, let me just say that if I ever spoke with Jumpy (only using him as an example) and found out that in RL he speaks like a college professor, well, that would just ruin his whole image. Or the image of who he tries to portray himself to be. For some, voice is just best left alone.

Your World. Your Imagination.

LOL

It's different things to different people. I don't think any of us come here for love.

Some might for pixellated jigging about but that's different. SL is a lonely place alone and just as in life most people want companionship.

Maybe people do act on voice. I am more polite to strangers on voice certainly, but I don't ever act with my baby. FAR from it

In public speech, in messing about and showing off, playing the fool/straight woman (ha ha ... ironic) and banter ... yeah I guess that is like a performance in a way. I know some witty people, have to keep up with them!

@Colette - anything that was doomed will be doomed however it manifests I guess. Better to die gloriously on the vine than become ragged leaves in the wet mud of reality.

I've had people I previously was not fond of (to put it mildly) become more tolerable after hearing them speak. I've also had people I felt were liable to be slimy and unpleasant turn out to BE slimy and unpleasant when they spoke.

And probably there's a fair few people not too pleased when they heard me either, but that's understandable

Totally irrelevant. Totally.

Oh go on Kelly. Make Conan's day ... he was accusing me of having an accent originating in a West Midlands city beginning with B and he was really hacked off that I wasn't falling for it.

Could be worse. You're not admitting to Yam-Yamness at least.

BOSTIN!!!

No it is relevant Michael. Otherwise you're saying they are less of a person than someone who can speak. I am sure that's NOT what you mean though.

I don't agree that it's totally irrelevant. If you're saying that you can tell a lot about who a person is by hearing their voice and speech patterns, what would you deduce about someone who has a speech impediment. It's not their responsibility, or maybe just not their desire, to reveal the fact that they have a speech impediment. So, if they sound guttaral, or they stutter, what would you determine about them? You might assume they had a speech impediment so their voice or speech pattern is a non-issue, or you might erroneously deduce that they were uneducated or something else along those lines. Therefore, I see Lucrezia's point as very valid to the discussion that this thread has become.

I'm not saying a poem can't illustrate love. I'm not saying a painting can't illustrate love. Of course that's not what I meant, and isn't what I said.

I said 'I love you' --the actual phrase, 'I love you.' How many ways can that be written? One. How many ways can it be said by every unique individual of this planet? Infinitely.

LOL ... back up there Mr. You're arguing my own point back at me, in a way. I get it ... I get it plenty I'll use whatever's going, so long as they never invent Smellovision cos that day dawns and I will only talk to girls, or maybe men who NEVER eat beans or drink beer

OK also no girls who eat beans or drink beer. Let's be an equal opportunity avoider of gaseous transmissions!

That would be revealing where they grew up. Not themselves.

I'm not sure how personality equals the place someone learned to speak.

I spent my younger years in Virginia and moved to Ohio at 15 - how is my personality different from someone who spent their younger years in Michigan and moved to Pennsylvania at 15?

Or because I am American - should all the American Stereotypes apply to me?

Is there a chart somewhere I can follow?

Kinda like being disappointed uopn learning George Sand was really a woman.


That might be a good analogy in that we are all Authors of our own book.
Some will write autobiographies, some will write fact based fiction, some will write total fiction. Text and voice are two different ways to tell the story, a preferred writing style if you will.