Sometimes, teenagers make irritating noises. Now we know what those noises are called.
Over at The Week, editor (and linguist) James Harbeck has penned an excellent piece titled, quite simply, “Linguistic dissection of 7 annoying teenage sounds.” It begins:
The next time you find yourself wondering about the highest use of linguistics, or enduring the insulting grunts and groans of petulant adolescents and wondering how such noises could even be described, bring the two worlds together. Clearly, linguistics exists just so we can give a technical description of those hard-to-spell sounds that erupt from callow youths. Here are seven examples (with three bonus variations).
Included above is the video that accompanies the piece. Enjoy.
Read the full analysis at The Week.
