Apparently the two vocal inflections which make me unable to listen to so many young women today without wanting to claw my own eardrums out, actually have names. 
 
Vocal Fry - a tendency to lower the voice into a kind of gravelly, scratchy rasp in the latter half of sentences. 
 

 
Uptalk - when the voice raises in pitch toward the end of sentences, as if a question is being asked even when it's not. 
 
I just got a couple of videos into a Lynda.com video course and am debating whether or not I can continue with it because the presenter is demonstrating both vocal traits. 
 
Apparently it's affecting people's chances of getting hired as well:
 
http://www.fastcompany.com/3032208/hit-the-ground-running/4-speech-habits-that-are-undermining-your-job-chances
 
Millennials! When I was a teenager and into my early 20's, I don't think there was quite the same level of homogenization among young people. Apart from the regional accent, we all had our own peculiar speech patterns and instantly recognizable voices. Now everyone of that age sounds identical to me, I can barely tell them apart. 

sharke
Now everyone of that age sounds identical to me, I can barely tell them apart. 

And all their music is just loud banging and screaming and  it too all sounds alike.

Yay.  Something else to be annoyed about!

Get off my lawn everyone!

Like, whatever.

These same girls, instead of actually laughing at a joke, will instead say "oh my god that is soooooooo funny."

Hi-
 
Try transcribing several hours of interviews with "vocal fryers" and then tell me you're absolutely sure you wouldn't strangle the next person to walk in the room (or yourself, if you could.)
 
-Susan

In finnish language the modern pests of producing speech are a little different, but equally irritating.
I can't understand that these "challenged" persons even get hired for TV or radio work. Well, maybe, in a small country you can't find enough people who have both the will and the skill :o/.
 
Another story is the pretenciously dramatic, low pitch way of speech that, say, David Caruso or Christian Bale use.
I can't watch Bales Batman films because it's so irritating. It makes me think of Margaret Thatcher, though she did it more convincingly.

Margaret Thatcher played Batman??!!1!  Which film?  I gotta see this...

Well I just started another Lynda course, this time on content marketing, and once again I'm having to debate whether to continue because the presenter has a serious case of the Uptalks. Maybe I'm just shallow or tetchy and I should be able to get past the way someone speaks, but I just find that if I'm irritated by a speech pattern then it's too distracting. I cannot help associating uptalk with shallow adolescence and it discredits what she's saying. I guess presentation is important. Speech impediments I have no problem with  - stutter? Not a problem at all. I don't associate a stutter with anything negative. But I've probably formed a negative opinion of people who uptalk, same as people who insert the word "like" into every phrase.