Forget fittest, it's survival of the most cultured

Evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel enters tricky terrain to argue that social structures are key to human evolution in Wired for Culture

FOR decades, proponents of the power of culture in human development have been tribal enemies of those who champion the power of evolution. The former have been vilified for portraying humans as blank slates; the latter scorned for embracing genetic determinism. The middle ground was no-man's-land.

Now, at last, the war might be over. A consensus is emerging that humans have an impressive capacity for open-ended change, much as culturalists have claimed, but that this is a result of genetic evolution - and is itself an evolutionary process. Culture can now be approached from an evolutionary perspective, while evolutionists have much to learn from the "natural historians" of cultures.

Mark Pagel, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Reading, UK, is well placed to write on these recent developments. In Wired for Culture he frames cultural development in the language of Richard Dawkins's selfish gene theory, in which genes are replicators that build individual bodies as vehicles for their own survival. Dawkins famously coined the term "meme" as the cultural analogue of a gene. Pagel's argument goes one step further.

Memes, he says, have built vehicles around themselves made up of groups of people. We live inside "cultural survival vehicles" that allow us to collectively survive and reproduce in any given environment. Pagel argues that there are thousands of such vehicles, each adapted to different environments, exemplified by humanity's wealth of languages. Genetically we remain a single species, but culturally we are worlds apart, comparable to dinosaurs, birds and mammals.

Wired for Culture explores the implications of the emerging consensus across the breadth of human experience, from religion, the arts and economics, through consciousness, deception, conflict and the very idea of truth.

Pagel writes well, and the ideas within the book are engagingly expressed. But in a book which overcomes the traditional separation between evolutionists and culturalists, Pagel has difficulty surmounting tribal boundaries within his own field.

Evolutionary biologists are divided on the subject of group selection - the view that adaptations can evolve "for the good of the group". Acceptance of group selection in the context of selfish gene theory hinges on the question of whether groups can be vehicles of selection. Dawkins and other selfish gene theorists such as Daniel Dennett are sceptical about this possibility, and their scepticism extends to ideas about culture and religion. Indeed, both have famously argued that religious memes are like parasites that are detrimental to their human "hosts".

Pagel departs from Dawkins and Dennett by portraying cultures as group-level survival vehicles, correctly in my opinion, but seems to think that in employing the language of selfish gene theory he is rejecting group selection. This is a failure of translation. When he makes statements such as: "Any group that failed to acquire these cultural forms could find themselves in competition with others that had", he is invoking group selection, pure and simple.

This is an issue for everyone: books like The Selfish Gene had a huge impact because they brought issues like group selection into the public realm. Much of the work Pagel cites openly acknowledges the role of group selection in the evolution of human society, and to deny its importance is a disservice to public understanding. It is a pity that Pagel, whose speciality is the evolution of languages, cannot seem to translate among the languages spoken within his own discipline.

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References:

Wilson, David Sloan. 2012. "Forget fittest, it's survival of the most cultured". New Scientist. Posted: March 5, 2012. Available online: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2012/03/forget-fittest-its-survival-of-the-most-cultured.html

Foot bones allow researchers to determine sex of skeletal remains

Law enforcement officials who are tasked with identifying a body based on partial skeletal remains have a new tool at their disposal. A new paper from North Carolina State University researchers details how to determine the biological sex of skeletal remains based solely on measurements of the seven tarsal bones in the feet.

"Tarsals are fairly dense bones, and can be more durable than other bones – such as the pelvis – that are used to determine biological sex," says Dr. Troy Case, an associate professor of anthropology at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the research. "Also, the tarsal bones are often enclosed in shoes, which further protects them from damage. That's particularly useful in a forensic context." The tarsals are the seven bones that make up the ankle, heel and rear part of the arch in a human foot.

Researchers looked at the tarsal bones of 160 men and women of modern European-American descent, taking length, breadth and height measurements for each bone, with the exception of the calcaneus. For the calcaneus, or heel bone, researchers measured only its length.

Previous studies had shown that the talus – or ankle bone – and calcaneus can be fairly good indicators of biological sex. However, little research had been done on the other tarsal bones, which are significantly smaller.

The researchers found that the tarsal bones of the right foot are generally more reliable indicators for determining biological sex. For example, the length of the talus on the right foot correctly determined biological sex 90 percent of the time.

However, a single measurement can be misleading. For example, a woman may be particularly tall, or a man particularly short. So the researchers looked at combinations of measurements from multiple bones, which allow them to measure the relative size of the bones to each other.

For example, researchers found that looking at the height of the talus along with the length of the third cuneiform bone – in the center of the foot – allowed them to determine the biological sex of a skeleton with 93.6 percent accuracy.

While the research has clear forensic science applications, it may also help researchers studying ancient populations. "We evaluated remains of modern European-Americans, so our findings are not directly applicable to ancient populations," Case says. "However, it does tell us which tarsal bones are most indicative of biological sex. So, if you have a large number of skeletons, and some of them can be sexed based on skull or pelvis measurements, you could use the information we've provided on tarsals to create equations for sexing the other skeletal remains in that group based solely on tarsal measurements."
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References:

EurekAlert. 2012. "Foot bones allow researchers to determine sex of skeletal remains". EurekAlert. Posted: February 29, 2012. Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-02/ncsu-fba022912.php

Research re-examines role of Maya Women

UCR graduate student's discoveries in the British Museum and on the Yucatan Peninsula prompt reinterpretation of women's roles in pre-colonial Mexico

Contrary to popular belief, women played a central role in Maya society before the arrival of Spanish explorers in the early 16th century, a University of California, Riverside graduate student has discovered. That finding is significant for modern Mayan women, whose status in society rapidly diminished under Spanish colonial rule and remains so today, according to Shankari Patel, a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology.

Patel's groundbreaking research, which included extensive fieldwork in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and an examination of previously uncatalogued artifacts in the British Museum, has won her the 2011 Dissertation Award from the American Anthropological Association's American Feminist Association (AFA) and the AAA Minority Dissertation Fellowship. Patel expects to complete her dissertation, "Journey to the East: Pilgrimage, Politics, and Gender at Postclassic Yucatan," and graduate in June.

The AFA described her reinterpretation of the archaeology and history of the Maya as "compelling."

Patel, a native of Hawaii who grew up in Echo Park, Calif., said she became interested in the role of Maya women while touring the Yucatan Peninsula.

"Maya culture has been described by scholars as male-dominated. But I found many towns named for women, and female deities on the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula," she explained. "I started asking how women came to be removed from religious institutions and activities, and from the history of the region."

Patel discovered that thousands of religious and other artifacts of Maya society were removed from the region, beginning with Spanish explorers who arrived in 1512, and later by British sailors. More than 2,000 objects from Isla Sacrificios, a small island off the coast of Vera Cruz that she contends was part of a female deity pilgrimage network in use from about 1100 A.D. to 1500 A.D., were delivered to the British Museum in 1844 and remained in crates. Fewer than a dozen of those items had been published or displayed in the museum. "We excavate so much, but not all of it gets analyzed," she said.

After receiving permission from museum administrators and with research funding from UC MEXUS (University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States), Patel began a methodical examination of mountains of crates in a scene she likened to "Raiders of the Lost Ark." She found hundreds of spindle whorls — ceramic disks typically used for spinning and weaving, but in this case used in religious rituals — as well as female icons and figurines used in funerary rituals.

Artifacts at the British Museum and elsewhere in Europe provide evidence of the central role women played in Maya society before colonialization, Patel said, including priestess oracles along the Yucatan Peninsula's east coast.

"Women lost their status and authority with the advent of colonialism," she said. "The Spaniards didn't understand female leaders and they squashed pagan religions. They branded women healers and diviners as witches. They talked about them as improper women who spoke for their men.

"Our society is so patriarchal, and archaeologists often don't realize how that affects the way they look at the past. What we say about the past is important to the people who live there today. It's political how you talk about people in the past. If you say women are subjugated today because they always have been, that's a way of justifying what's happening today. If you can show that was not true, that it happened because of colonialism, there is opportunity for new interpretations of history and for change to occur."

Patel received her bachelor's degree in anthropology and an interdisciplinary master's degree in anthropology, geography and religious studies from California State University, Los Angeles. She said she chose UC Riverside for her Ph.D. studies because of the anthropology department's Maya scholars, who are known internationally for their research.

Thomas C. Patterson, distinguished professor and chair of the UCR Department of Anthropology, said Patel is a skilled archaeologist whose research will contribute to a richer understanding of the position of women in the religious and sociopolitical institutions of Postclassic (900-1500 AD) Maya society.

Her research makes use of ethnohistoric, archaeological, and iconographic information from archaeological sites in eastern Mesoamerica and from Mexican codices, and illustrates linkages between the Mixtec and eastern Maya societies, Patterson said. "It focuses on understanding pilgrimages to oracular shrines that linked the two peoples from the two regions and how these journeys provided elite women with political resources that they wielded in everyday life," he added. "Her investigations will add significant textures to our understanding of Mexican society in late Precolumbian times. The reason for this is her articulation of gender and the participation of women in religious pilgrimages to the oracular shrines of female deities in the region."
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References:

EurekAlert. 2012. "Research re-examines role of Maya Women". EurekAlert. Posted: Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-02/uoc--rrr022912.php

Ice Age mariners from Europe were among America's first people

Some of the earliest humans to inhabit America came from Europe according to a new book. Across Atlantic Ice puts forward a compelling case for people from northern Spain travelling to America by boat, following the edge of a sea ice shelf that connected Europe and America during the last Ice Age, 14,000 to 25,000 years ago.

Across Atlantic Ice is the result of more than a decade's research by leading archaeologists Professor Bruce Bradley of the University of Exeter (UK) and Dr Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian Institution (USA). Through archaeological evidence, they turn the long-held theory of the origins of New World populations on its head.

For more than 400 years, it has been claimed that people first entered America from Asia, via a land bridge that spanned the Bering Sea. We now know that some people did arrive via this route nearly 15,000 years ago, probably by both land and sea.

Eighty years ago, stone tools long believed to have been left by the first New World inhabitants were discovered in New Mexico and named Clovis. These distinctive Clovis stone tools are now dated around 12,000 years ago leading to the recognition that people preceded Clovis into the Americas.

No Clovis tools have been found in Alaska or Northeast Asia, but are concentrated in the south eastern United States. Groundbreaking discoveries from the east coast of North America are demonstrating that people who are believed to be Clovis ancestors arrived in this area no later than 18,450 years ago and possibly as early as 23,000 years ago, probably in boats from Europe. These early inhabitants made stone tools that differ in significant ways from the earliest stone tools known in Alaska. It now appears that people entering the New World arrived from more than one direction.

In their new book, the authors trace the origins of Clovis culture from the Solutrean people, who occupied northern Spain and France more than 20,000 years ago. They believe that these people went on to populate America's east coast, eventually spreading at least as far as Venezuela in South America.

The link between Clovis and contemporary Native Americans is not yet clear. The authors do not suggest that the people from Europe were the only ancestors of modern Native Americans. They argue that it is evident that early inhabitants also arrived from Asia, into Alaska, populating America's western coast. Their ongoing research suggests that the early history of the continent is far more intriguing than we formerly believed.

Some of the archaeological evidence analysed in the book was recovered from deep in the ocean. When the first people arrived in America, sea levels were nearly 130 metres lower than today. The shore lines of 20,000 years ago, which hold much of the evidence left by these early people, are now under the ocean. This is also the case in Europe.

Professor Bruce Bradley of the University of Exeter said: "We now have really solid evidence that people came from Europe to the New World around 20,000 years ago. Our findings represent a paradigm shift in the way we think about America's early history. We are challenging a very deep-seated belief in how the New World was populated. The story is more intriguing and more complicated than we ever have imagined."

Dr Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian Institution agrees: "There are more alternatives than we think in archaeology and we need to have imagination and an open mind when we examine evidence to avoid being stuck in orthodoxy. This book is the result of more than a decade's work, but it is just the beginning of our journey."

Across Atlantic Ice is published by University California Press, Berkeley. It will be officially launched at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, on 29 February 2012.

"Across Atlantic Ice is brilliant and ground-breaking. As fascinating as it is controversial, this book brings together decades of research from diverse areas into a single volume that is well argued, factually rich, elegantly written¬—and absolutely riveting. I could not put it down." Douglas Preston, author of Cities of Gold, Thunderhead, and former archaeology correspondent for The New Yorker magazine

"In their well-written and well-reasoned exploration of the first inhabitants of the Americas, Dennis Stanford and Bruce Bradley have provided a viable alternative scenario. I am not a trained professional, but I have been reading the archaeological literature for thirty-five years. Their argument is logical and should be given an open-minded hearing." Jean M. Auel, author of The Land of Painted Caves and The Clan of the Cave Bear

"This carefully crafted, well-researched book aims to change our thinking of who the first Americans were and where they came from. Stanford and Bradley have produced an ambitious, interdisciplinary study of a neglected route of early entry into the Americas that will affect the way the larger narrative of the first chapter of human history in the New World is written." Tom D. Dillehay, author of The Settlement of the Americas: A New Prehistory

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References:

EurekAlert. 2012. "Ice Age mariners from Europe were among America's first people". EurekAlert. Posted: February 29, 2012. Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-02/uoe-iam022912.php

Understanding the brain on dance

How does the brain perceive and interpret beautiful movement?

This is one of the key questions being asked by scientists at Bangor University who have enlisted the help of a professional dancer in their quest to better understand how our brains process movement and how we learn by observation.

Dr Emily Cross' research focuses on the relatively new field of science called neuroaesthetics which looks at how the brain perceives artistic endeavours.

Contemporary dancer Riley Watts spent a day at the university being poked and prodded by the school's researchers.

First he was filmed dancing in a variety of settings, including a 3D motion-capture studio. He then underwent a functional MRI brain scan while simultaneously watching videos of himself dancing.

Dr Cross hopes the pilot experiment will provide a window into what Mr Watts' brain is doing as he watches the videos of himself dancing.

"The fMRI data we've gathered will hopefully show what the professional dancer actually perceives when he sees himself moving in very complex ways; whether he is happy with that movement or not, and how his brain differentiates between the various different contexts in which we had Riley dancing."

Structural differences in brains

Given Mr Watts' lifelong focus on dance, Dr Cross also thinks the scans of his brain may reveal slight structural variations compared to average people.

This would be similar to London's black cab drivers, whose extensive geographical knowledge actually enlarges the brain's hippocampus, the area where memories are formed.

For Mr Watts, working with scientists for the first time has been a welcome change from his usual artistic endeavours with the Forsythe dance company.

"This collaboration, creating a bridge between dance and science is one of the coolest things that I've ever done," he said.

"I'm thrilled that my skills as a dancer can be put to use in a scientific context to further everyone's understanding of what is actually going on in our brains."

Over the next few months Dr Cross plans to carry out further brain scans of amateur dancers and non-dancers while they watch the video footage she recorded of Mr Watts.

Although this is just the very beginning of her efforts, Dr Cross is optimistic about the future.

"The material Riley and I develop will lead to experiments that advance our understanding of how the brain learns complex movement. In particular, our results will inform how therapists can best teach new motor skills to healthy people as well as those suffering from neurological or physical injury."

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References:

BBC News. 2012. "Understanding the brain on dance". BBC News. Posted: February 27, 2012. Available online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17120495

Cemetery science: Gravestones aplenty, and few dead-ends

Project studies markers to see how elements such as acid rain weather rocks worldwide

To a geologist, a gravestone can offer information other rocks can't. One project is using gravestones to better understand how the elements, particularly acid rain, are weathering rocks around the world, and how that's changed over time.

"It is a great place for us to collect scientific data because gravestones have got dates on them, it is not that we have a morbid fascination," said Gary Lewis, director of education and outreach for the Geological Society of America, which is in charge of the Gravestone Project.

That date of death gives a good estimate of when the stone went into the ground above the grave and began to face elements.

The wear and tear on the stone that follows can be caused by freezing and thawing temperatures, lawn care machinery and rain made acidic by pollutants it has picked up in its course through the atmosphere.

"What we are trying to do is not just look at damage by acid rain, but we are trying to see how acid rain has changed over time," Lewis said.

The Gravestone Project recruits volunteers around the world to head into cemeteries where they use calipers to measure the width of a stone at five points along its sides and at its top. If a stone has lead letters on it, volunteers measure how much the stone has worn away from the lettering. Volunteers are asked to do this work respectfully.

Lewis and colleague Deirdre Dragovich of the University of Sydney have begun working through two years' worth of data collected so far, and they are still looking for more.

With the data they have so far, the researchers are looking at weathering rates over time and at potential links with atmospheric changes. Specifically, Lewis is interested in seeing if periods of increased rain in particular areas accelerated weathering rates, and if the arrival of the Industrial Revolution — and the increase in pollution that accompanied it — are reflected in increased gravestone weathering, and how the weathering rate has changed since the Industrial Revolution.

So far, they've seen that cemeteries in big cities seem to be weathering most rapidly, he said. This isn't a surprise since more acid rain-causing pollutants, particularly sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, are released over urban areas.

Laura Guertin, an associate professor of earth science at Pennsylvania State University, already frequented the Cumberland Cemetery across the street from the Brandywine campus with her introductory geosciences students, when she began participating in the project in 2011.

At that cemetery and another in central Pennsylvania, Boalsburg Cemetery, she and her students have undertaken a wide range of projections, including comparing weathering rates of different types of stones (nearly all are granite or marble), and gleaning information about the history of the local community, such as how long people lived.

"At first they are a little creeped out," Guertin said. "I tell them, 'Don't worry, I will bring you all back with me.'"

Her students found a weathering pattern they didn't expect in certain areas within Cumberland Cemetery, where they found stones with the most wear on the sides of the top of the stone, rather than at the middle point.

"This is something I want my students to look into," she said.
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References:

Parry, Wynne. 2012. "Cemetery science: Gravestones aplenty, and few dead-ends". MSNBC. Posted: February 27, 2012. Available online: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46545861/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.T01XpXki-Hc

They’re, Like, Way Ahead of the Linguistic Currrrve

From Valley Girls to the Kardashians, young women have long been mocked for the way they talk.

Whether it be uptalk (pronouncing statements as if they were questions? Like this?), creating slang words like “bitchin’ ” and “ridic,” or the incessant use of “like” as a conversation filler, vocal trends associated with young women are often seen as markers of immaturity or even stupidity.

Right?

But linguists — many of whom once promoted theories consistent with that attitude — now say such thinking is outmoded. Girls and women in their teens and 20s deserve credit for pioneering vocal trends and popular slang, they say, adding that young women use these embellishments in much more sophisticated ways than people tend to realize.

“A lot of these really flamboyant things you hear are cute, and girls are supposed to be cute,” said Penny Eckert, a professor of linguistics at Stanford University. “But they’re not just using them because they’re girls. They’re using them to achieve some kind of interactional and stylistic end.”

The latest linguistic curiosity to emerge from the petri dish of girl culture gained a burst of public recognition in December, when researchers from Long Island University published a paper about it in The Journal of Voice. Working with what they acknowledged was a very small sample — recorded speech from 34 women ages 18 to 25 — the professors said they had found evidence of a new trend among female college students: a guttural fluttering of the vocal cords they called “vocal fry.”

A classic example of vocal fry, best described as a raspy or croaking sound injected (usually) at the end of a sentence, can be heard when Mae West says, “Why don’t you come up sometime and see me,” or, more recently on television, when Maya Rudolph mimics Maya Angelou on “Saturday Night Live.”

Not surprisingly, gadflies in cyberspace were quick to pounce on the study — or, more specifically, on the girls and women who are frying their words. “Are they trying to sound like Kesha or Britney Spears?” teased The Huffington Post, naming two pop stars who employ vocal fry while singing, although the study made no mention of them. “Very interesteeeaaaaaaaaang,” said Gawker.com, mocking the lazy, drawn-out affect.

Do not scoff, says Nassima Abdelli-Beruh, a speech scientist at Long Island University and an author of the study. “They use this as a tool to convey something,” she said. “You quickly realize that for them, it is as a cue.”

Other linguists not involved in the research also cautioned against forming negative judgments.

“If women do something like uptalk or vocal fry, it’s immediately interpreted as insecure, emotional or even stupid,” said Carmen Fought, a professor of linguistics at Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif. “The truth is this: Young women take linguistic features and use them as power tools for building relationships.”

The idea that young women serve as incubators of vocal trends for the culture at large has longstanding roots in linguistics. As Paris is to fashion, the thinking goes, so are young women to linguistic innovation.

“It’s generally pretty well known that if you identify a sound change in progress, then young people will be leading old people,” said Mark Liberman, a linguist at the University of Pennsylvania, “and women tend to be maybe half a generation ahead of males on average.”

Less clear is why. Some linguists suggest that women are more sensitive to social interactions and hence more likely to adopt subtle vocal cues. Others say women use language to assert their power in a culture that, at least in days gone by, asked them to be sedate and decorous. Another theory is that young women are simply given more leeway by society to speak flamboyantly.

But the idea that vocal fads initiated by young women eventually make their way into the general vernacular is well established. Witness, for example, the spread of uptalk, or “high-rising terminal.”

Starting in America with the Valley Girls of the 1980s (after immigrating from Australia, evidently), uptalk became common among young women across the country by the 1990s.

In the past 20 years, uptalk has traveled “up the age range and across the gender boundary,” said David Crystal, a longtime professor of linguistics who teaches at Bangor University in Wales. “I’ve heard grandfathers and grandmothers use it,” he said. “I occasionally use it myself.”

Even an American president has been known to uptalk. “George W. Bush used to do it from time to time,” said Dr. Liberman, “and nobody ever said, ‘Oh, that G.W.B. is so insecure, just like a young girl.’ ”

The same can be said for the word “like,” when used in a grammatically superfluous way or to add cadence to a sentence. (Because, like, people tend to talk this way when impersonating, like, teenage girls?) But in 2011, Dr. Liberman conducted an analysis of nearly 12,000 phone conversations recorded in 2003, and found that while young people tended to use “like” more often than older people, men used it more frequently than women.

And, actually? The use of “like” in a sentence, “apparently without meaning or syntactic function, but possibly as emphasis,” has made its way into the Webster’s New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition — this newspaper’s reference Bible — where the example given is: “It’s, like, hot.” Anyone who has seen a television show featuring the Kardashian sisters will be more than familiar with this usage.

“Like” and uptalk often go hand in hand. Several studies have shown that uptalk can be used for any number of purposes, even to dominate a listener. In 1991, Cynthia McLemore, a linguist at the University of Pennsylvania, found that senior members of a Texas sorority used uptalk to make junior members feel obligated to carry out new tasks. (“We have a rush event this Thursday? And everyone needs to be there?”)

Dr. Eckert of Stanford recalled a study by one of her students, a woman who worked at a Jamba Juice and tracked instances of uptalking customers. She found that by far the most common uptalkers were fathers of young women. For them, it was “a way of showing themselves to be friendly and not asserting power in the situation,” she said.

Vocal fry, also known as creaky voice, has a long history with English speakers. Dr. Crystal, the British linguist, cited it as far back as 1964 as a way for British men to denote their superior social standing. In the United States, it has seemingly been gaining popularity among women since at least 2003, when Dr. Fought, the Pitzer College linguist, detected it among the female speakers of a Chicano dialect in California.

A 2005 study by Barry Pennock-Speck, a linguist at the University of Valencia in Spain, noted that actresses like Gwyneth Paltrow and Reese Witherspoon used creaky voice when portraying contemporary American characters (Ms. Paltrow used it in the movie “Shallow Hal,” Ms. Witherspoon in “Legally Blonde”), but not British ones in period films (Ms. Paltrow in “Shakespeare in Love,” Ms. Witherspoon in “The Importance of Being Earnest”).

So what does the use of vocal fry denote? Like uptalk, women use it for a variety of purposes. Ikuko Patricia Yuasa, a lecturer in linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, called it a natural result of women’s lowering their voices to sound more authoritative.

It can also be used to communicate disinterest, something teenage girls are notoriously fond of doing.

“It’s a mode of vibration that happens when the vocal cords are relatively lax, when sublevel pressure is low,” said Dr. Liberman. “So maybe some people use it when they’re relaxed and even bored, not especially aroused or invested in what they’re saying.”

But “language changes very fast,” said Dr. Eckert of Stanford, and most people — particularly adults — who try to divine the meaning of new forms used by young women are “almost sure to get it wrong.”

“What may sound excessively ‘girly’ to me may sound smart, authoritative and strong to my students,” she said.
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References:

Quencha, Douglas. 2012. "They’re, Like, Way Ahead of the Linguistic Currrrve". New York Times. Posted: February 27, 2012. Available online: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/science/young-women-often-trendsetters-in-vocal-patterns.html?_r=1