Phoney polyphony

English people returning home from a visit Down Under often find themselves unable to shake off one of their souvenirs: the rising interrogative tone at the end of a sentence.

It's a jolly good laugh for their friends at first, until they decide that it's an irritating poncey affectation. It isn't. It happens to most people and the more musical one’s ear the more rapidly one’s speech changes colour to match those of one’s aural surroundings.

After a period of re-settlement among their fellow-countrymen, usually about three weeks, the victim loses his faux-Ocker under the same attrition affect, this time of his native speech-music.

I say ‘his', the masculine not embracing the feminine, but in fact one notices this adoption of an exotic inflection more often among women. Perhaps it is because females have developed to a superior degree the literally vital ability to interpret the purely tonal signals of pre-lingual infants. Hence, too, women's discovery of the therapeutic affect on stressed babies of singing to them. Most men would not think of that.

There are other 'musical' habits of speech which are even more annoying and even more infectious than sounding like an Australian when in fact one comes from Steeple Bumpstead.

One of our neighbours, a woman with a normal alto voice, has the annoying habit of raising her voice three octaves on the sung-not-spoken word 'bye'. Or 'bye-bye'. Or even, gawdelpus, 'byee'. She seems to be infecting every female with whom she comes into contact with her annoying mannerism.

She is a sociable woman with a lot of female friends who call upon her in a continuous convivial stream when her husband is at work. One glimpses how Jane Austen’s social circles might have operated.

The arrival rituals are of the common or garden variety. The departure rituals, though, are frankly bizarre.

They involve a high-pitched fugue on the word ‘Bye!’

Proceedings commence with a simple high-soprano ‘Bye!’ from the party of the first part followed by (in the same tessitura if not at precisely the same pitch) a single ‘Bye!’ in response. Then the party of the first part offers a ‘Bye-bye!’ which is echoed by the party of the second part but with – and here is where the trouble starts – her first ‘Bye-’ overlapping with the second ‘-bye!’ from the party of the first part. At this point, one is hoping that the duet will end with a second ‘bye!’ from the party of the first part, but no.

Not to be outdone and keen to have the final word, the party of the second part, having anticipated the reprise of the party of the first part which we have just heard, instantly ripostes with her own second da capo ‘Bye-bye!’ of which her first syllable overlaps with the second ‘bye!’ from her opponent. The party of the first part returns fire with a da capo single ‘Bye!’ of her own.

We have now heard the last of the double bye-byes. From here on, the battle escalates rapidly, the weapon of each contender being the single, determined ‘Bye!’ but – and this is critical – each utterance commencing just before the last ‘Bye!’ from the opponent has died away. And thus we continue until the slam of the car door brings the curtain down on the whole Baroque performance.

I have counted as many as twelve contributions from each competitor, all with operatic projection, lacking only innate musicality and a little voice-coaching.

I leave to your imagination the cacophony the neighbourhood must endure when there are three or more women departing after one of her coffee-mornings.