HRT

No, nothing to do with hormones; as Damon Runyon would say, that is not such a topic as I am wishing to give the large hallo to.

It is evidence of the prevalence of the High Rising Terminal that this is the first of the ten meanings of these three letters listed by Wikipedia. Hampton Roads Transit, Hrvatska Radiotelevizija and the others need not detain us because it is the High Rising Terminal that is by far the most interesting of the ten, unless you are postmenopausal, transgendered, an inhabitant of Virginia, or deeply involved in Croatian broadcasting.

I didn’t know, until I read a review of Anne Karpf’s new book The Human Voice, that this HRT is the technical name for a rising intonation at the end of a sentence—“upspeak”, or “uptalk”.

Apparently it is uncertain where it originated or is most commonly used: Sydney? Southern California? Bristol? Northern Ireland?—but it was noted as early as World War II in Australia, New Zealand and England. And the sort of people who use it most?—teenagers, women, fans of Australian soaps… oh, and people in rural North Dakota and Minnesota who have come under the influence of the Norwegian language (how's that again?).

And various functions for it have been suggested: it may encourage the addressee to participate in the conversation, or it may exhibit the speaker’s insecurities about the statement; but recently it has been shown that assertive speakers (peer group leaders) are more likely to use HRT than junior members of the group since it indicates that the speaker is not finished yet, and thus perhaps discourages interruption. Which of these accounts for George W Bush’s extensive use of it is uncertain.

This speech habit is unattractive and misleading. Now that is a clear and resolute declaration: apply HRT to the last word and it becomes a feeble query, inviting the response: "No it isn't".