Why are some people softly spoken...

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While others are loud as f@#k!

Eg. When I worked at a mail center once you could hear this freak of nature of a man from the other side of the room, what I thought was screaming, talking. It was so annoying I wanted to stick a rifle up his ass. Work people said, oh that's just normal, he's always like that. I would understand if he had hearing aid, you know half deaf. But no's this guy you could practically hear everything he said a mile away.

Is it medical or just learned behavior to be softly or loudly spoken?

Because quite frankly I used to be softly spoken too, ah well, I still am by particle degrees. Especially when I get that stoned look on my face and I just haven't got the energy to say diddly.

Experiences.

 

[nolla]

I know a guy like that. With him it seems clear that it is learned behavior, since he also has a certain fake confidence in it.

 

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I don't know. People tell me to speak up all the time and I just can't. or it gets muffled and its like a mumbling quiet.

I had this thought once I so need to remove my mouth tonsils, I asked people to remove it, none took me serious. I looked into it a bit. I'll look into it later when I have more free time.
Oh then I thought that my thyroids broke my voice too deep and I sound like an african when I'm european. still quietly spoken but heh.
I even went to a voice specialist, said I sounded fine, not happy. The hell they know, my body, my voice.

I know these things like the back of my intuitive posterior end. You would think my voice would be booming instead the opposite has happened. And now its come back like its moved from my stomach to my throat and I can speak better. I had to suck in my diaphragm to speak and still be out of breath now I don't have to.

 

[nolla]

My speech is mostly on the quiet side, except when I get excited, people tell me I'm yelling. This is more often when I am too drunk to realize it myself. The only "problem" I have with my speech is that I can't say all the letters correctly. In Finnish that is. The language is a lot more hard sounding than English, and I can't do the R properly. It should sound really sharp compared to English. Other than that there are some other letters that seem to blur weirdly when I speak Finnish. I have none of these problems with other languages I speak. Kinda ironic...

 

[Thalassa]

Ok, one of my sisters prides herself on speaking quietly, and sometimes it would actually annoy me because I wouldn't be able to hear her clearly sometimes on the phone - and she does it on purpose.

You see, a lot of the women in my family are loud and expressive: my mom, me, one of my other sisters...and apparently my ENFJ sister decided when she was a little girl that she never wanted to be one of those loud people. It was a conscious effort she made. I mean, she's not always soft-spoken, but she is a lot of the time and maintains an awareness of it.

I think part of the reason why we are loud is lung capacity. I sang in school or church choir for much of my life and was told I had really good lungs and that's why I could project so well singing. So in that case it's probably a combination of genes and environment.

 

[Synapse]

Its part of it, I can't imagine you being loud loud per say even with a more defined lung capacity. The person was screaming, people where I worked were raising their voices but to the way that dude was talking was normal. the difference is apparent.

Lacks focus, wanted to talk...getting dizzy.
Must want to write, dejavu, probably talked about this bfore.
looks up techy stuff, crap this, too foggy to find detail
Late thyroid issues slow speech and a hoarse, breaking voice – deepening of the voice can also be noticed, caused by Reinke's Edema.
but voice stuffed up early. uhg why am i out of focus now after meant to be in focus, blurry.
something about tonsils swelling of the lymph and closing the larynx and adenoids

 

[Eckhart]

I am naturally soft-spoken. I always were rather quiet, and sometimes people tell me to speak up which I find annoying for some reason (though I at least know then that they try to listen to what I say). I don't know why some people are more loud and some more quiet.

Maybe I am drifting away a bit from what you mean, but I also noticed when it comes to phone conversations that some people suddenly speak unreasonable loud when they are on phone. Especially my father starts to nearly yell at the phone which is annoying. I just speak normal and people don't have a problem to understand me on phone, so what for yelling into it, as if they had to yell to the person adequately to the "real" distance?

 

[nolla]

Maybe I am drifting away a bit from what you mean, but I also noticed when it comes to phone conversations that some people suddenly speak unreasonable loud when they are on phone. Especially my father starts to nearly yell at the phone which is annoying. I just speak normal and people don't have a problem to understand me on phone, so what for yelling into it, as if they had to yell to the person adequately to the "real" distance?

If he turned the volume of the phone speaker up, he wouldn't yell. It is about him not hearing the other person well.

 

[Eckhart]

Nah, I mean, he is not calling me. I am in the same room as him while he talks, and occassionally I use the same phone which has not a low volume. He speaks always so loud into the phone. I don't think it is because he doesn't hear the other person.

 

[Dali]

I think it's mostly learned behaviour. Take my younger brother for instance; I have lost count of the number of times that myself and my other brothers have told that 8yr-old (mum had him in her 40's) ESTJ to modulate the volume of his speaking voice. He is just effortlessly LOUD. He's the last born and, sometimes, when we're being rambunctious (7 boys, what do you expect? lol) or having an animated conversation, he feels the need to yell and be highly animated so he can be heard over the 'tumult'. This tendency of his developed 2 or 3 years ago and it seems to have stuck.

 

[nolla]

I would assume, though, that he wouldn't yell if he wasn't an extrovert. Do anyone know introverts that yell constantly? Or extroverts who mumble?

 

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Enlarged adenoids can become nearly the size of a ping pong ball and completely block airflow through the nasal passages. Even if enlarged adenoids are not substantial enough to physically block the back of the nose, they can obstruct airflow enough so that breathing through the nose requires an uncomfortable amount of work, and inhalation occurs instead through an open mouth. Adenoids can also obstruct the nasal airway enough to affect the voice without actually stopping nasal airflow altogether.

Nasal blockage is determined by at least two factors: 1) the size of the adenoids, and 2) the size of the nasal pharynx passageway. The adenoid usually reaches its greatest size by about age 5 years or so, and then fades away ("atrophies") by late childhood - generally by the age of 7 years. The lymphoid tissue remains under the mucosa of the nasopharynx, and could be seen under a microscope if the area was biopsied, but the mass is so reduced in size that the roof of the nasopharynx becomes flat rather than mounded. Just as the size of the adenoids is variable between individuals, so is the age at which adenoids atrophy.

The adenoids, like all lymphoid tissue, enlarge when infected. Although lymphoid tissue does act to fight infection, sometimes bacteria and viruses can lodge within it and survive. Chronic infection, either viral or bacterial, can keep the pad of adenoids enlarged for years, even into adulthood. Some viruses, such as the Epstein-Barr Virus, can cause dramatic enlargement of lymphoid tissue. Primary or reactivation infections with Epstein Barr Virus, and certain other bacteria and viruses, can even cause enlargement of the adenoidal pad in an adult whose adenoids had previously become atrophied.

Curious

 

[Spamtar]

Have been told I am soft spoken through most of my life. I try and speak up more when the occasion calls for it.

Think I like it in others mostly...a loud barking voice eventually grates on me...especially some dialects.

That being said it drives me a little crazy when I cant hear what someone is telling me. It is usually a failure to annunciate rather than simply being softly spoken though.

If I get married would prefer it to be to a soft spoken woman who speaks with clarity or otherwise a woman with a pleasing voice in general (as far as mate selection this can be almost as important as looks/intellegence to me)

 

[rav3n]

Why are some people softly spoken?
Because their mommas taught them the difference between an inside and outside voice!

 

[Tallulah]

I just don't have a naturally loud voice. I learned to project when I was doing theatre, and I speak decently loudly in the classroom. I wish my voice was naturally louder, especially for singing purposes. I sing in a band, and our other singer is as loud as an electric guitar. I get drowned out very easily. It's annoying.

 

[uumlau]

It has a lot to do with control of the vocal cords. Imagine a balloon filled with air, but you're pinching it closed. If you just open end a very little bit, it generates a huge amount of noise with very little air passing through. If you open it more, such that the air passes more freely, the sounds gets quieter. Quiet people tend to have more "breathy" voices and use more air to speak.

Another factor is frequency. Higher frequencies are usually more audible than lower ones. E.g., raising pitch can often make one more easily heard than raising volume, especially if one is in a loud environment.

 

[Epiphany]

Some people talk louder than others because they think it makes them more dominant or in the case of a debate, makes their viewpoint more valid as opposed to talking in a reasonable tone when all it really does is make them look like an ass. It's a rhetorical tactic.

Take Chris Matthews for example. I'm not talking about his political views, but the tone in which he debates them.

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsy3g9rvcj0"]He's loud therefore he must be right[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Spamtar]

Yeah he thinks by raising his voice he makes his softballs hard.

 

[Vasilisa]

I don't know why. Maybe its related to shyness, which I tend to see as being at least partially inborn. I've been soft spoken in life, and I think in more ways than just volume. I think it was an unkind decision when one of my schools used me as an instrument to check the volume of microphones in the auditorium. The logic being, that if the quietest girl's voice could be heard in the way back, then the microphone volume was adequate.

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[Stanton Moore]

I work between two LOUD TALKERS!!!

They're both extroverts too. Thank god for earbuds.