Learning English: The ‘Fry’ is like, totally burning me up

You hear a lot of talk these days about English needing to be the official language in the United States. And some folks get downright cranky when they overhear immigrants speaking in their native tongue. But I say, “Get over yourselves, people” because have you heard what’s going on with the English language these days?
Perhaps it began with the Valley Girl phenomenon in the early 1980s when a certain culture of young women living in the San Fernando Valley became synonymous with airheady, spoiled “Material Girls.” Social status, personal appearance and shopping at the mall became the trifecta of the Valleyspeak crowd.
With Valleyspeak came words like, well “like” and “totally” thrown in at every opportunity such as, “The party was so, like, totally lame and I was so like, totally bored …” and you TOTALLY get the idea.
Or try to refrain from imploding as you listen to a couple of VG’s while you wait behind them for your nonfat soy latte: 
Valleygirl 1: “And he’s all, ‘I was TOTALLY not cheating on you,’ and I’m all, ‘No duh, she is like TOTALLY grody, I’m so sure, dude…”
Valleygirl 2: “As IF!!”
From Valleyspeak came the infamous “up talk,” which makes every sentence a question, declarative and otherwise. As IF! You have undoubtedly been subjected to this:
“So I’m going to the movies tonight? And I think Derek is taking me? And I totally want to see ‘Bridesmaids 14’ but he’s into ‘Man of Steel’?”
Oh, can we seriously get a grip here, ladies? I mean, pity the poor person who has just gotten off the boat from Tajikistan and is subjected to this annihilation of the English language.
It’s bad enough there are a gazillion words that sound the same and have different meanings or are spelled differently and sound the same. Remember the “I Love Lucy” episode where Lucy is explaining to Ricky the various nuances in English, and Ricky is trying to comprehend the difference between words like “rough” and “bough?” No wonder English is one of the hardest languages to learn, and I have mad respect for any English-language-learner who speaks English even just a wee little bit.
So it isn’t a great leap to wonder why in the world younger generation folks, born and raised in the United States, have taken it upon themselves to bring about all manners of strangeness to our mother tongue. And, hey, it’s not like I believe everyone should speak the Queen’s English at all times. I love as much as the next person the fun slang that comes about over time.
For example, think about all the inventive words people use describing things they like.
In my mom’s day, something was “swell.” When I was a teen, we used words like “hip” or “cool” or (when your mom wasn’t around) “bitchin’.” From there, words evolved into “boss” and “rad” and “bad,” which of course meant “good” – so there you go. I’m still not sure why “sick” got stuffed into that group although this shows how out of touch I am.
But the most grating business of all (in my opinion), is the more recently-developed manner of ending sentences in the lowest vocal register, which voice experts term “vocal fry.”
I think of it as “twerking” while talking, and if you’ve been visiting Mars and missed the Miley Cyrus gyrations (a.k.a. “twerking”) on the VMAs and the furor it caused, well, let’s just say it was, um … different.
This learned behavior is in vogue mostly among younger women. It’s where creaky, low vocal tones mark users as part of some perceived, elite social group. It’s accomplished by blowing small puffs of air through the vocal cords, and it sounds like the speaker is running out of air. Pop singer Britney Spears slips a little “fry” into her songs, and if you’re a fan of reality shows, you’ve no doubt spotted this annoying speech on shows like “The Bachelor” and anything Kardashian.
Oddly enough, this speech behavior was once viewed as a voice disorder. WHAT? Someone needs to tell them! Ladies: Find your voices! Before, you know, you TOTALLY run out of oxygen.