Loud people

I am deaf and wear hearing aids, so I do need people to talk a little louder, but there is a difference, between needing to speak louder and just being loud to get attention , sometimes though, people don't always realise they ARE being loud.

Here the tendency started years ago because kindergarten children were allowed to make so much noise that they had to shout to each other to hear what was being said.

In the 1970s I noticed that we had to insist that the children spoke "in a normal voice" at home.

A great part of my time as a teacher from the 1980 until I retired in 2013 was spent asking children not to shout, but to talk at a reasonable level.

I noticed while we were travelling in Europe that in Germany, France and the Netherlands, but perhaps particularly in Germany, people in shops, restaurants or other public places still talk quietly to each other and rebuke their children if they speak too loudly.

I wish the same thing was still customary here. I suppose all we can do about it is to point out to those we know well enough that we are not deaf, so the don't need to shout.

One school child actually said to me, "You'll need to shout if you want us to hear you." My reply was that I had been brought up to consider it very rude to shout at people, and I would feel ridiculous shouting, "Be quiet, please!"

Fountain Pen while I totally agree yours is the right way to go about it, if I did it in the area where I live (most anywhere in Londonn) I'd more than likely to be punched (or stabbed). And the polite request would more than likely make that person talk even louder.

I too can never understand why people with small children in tow talk to them at the top of their voice, clearly addressing everyone. If anything, children's hearing should be the most acute and sensitive - Mummy/Daddy bellowing is not necessary and perhaps a way of saying 'Look at me - I have a child here and we are TALKING - what a wonderful parent I am!' As for bellowing adults - we have sat through many a restaurant meal with a ninety decibel diner on the next table, and struggled to hear the conversation at ours!

My pet hate is loud people in the quiet carriage on the train. I had a very loud business woman sitting behind me recently using the journey to catch up on business calls. She had her mobile phone plugged in at my seat. I unplugged it, handed her her cable and reminded her it was the quiet carriage. Her face was a picture. She stormed off elsewhere to make her calls.

DD has a slight hearing loss as a result of constant ear infections as a child and does tend to speak loudly. She’s now a teacher and I think that has added to the problem! I’m quite self conscious about being overheard so tend to speak quietly. I haven’t noticed it particularly in others out and about but I do notice the people who SHOUT on GN!

I hate loud voices too. Some people have voices which naturally carry but I wonder if their spouses are hard of hearing? They may have adjusted accordingly so as not to keep on repeating themselves.
In a club I go to there is just one lady who you can hear as soon as you enter the room - she appears to have great self-confidence, so good for her. It just so happens that she was a teacher so I expect that she had to make sure that she could be heard from the back!

Is it not a form of attention seeking.?Usually stems from ones early childhood Seen, not heard.?

A lot of younger people are very loud. I think that this maybe due to the constant loud music played in their ever present earphones. I can hear the music from yards away.
Sometimes people who are hard of hearing do overcompensate for it when speaking. DH who is a little hard of hearing speaks more quietly though and we have to tell him to speak up!

P.S. We have one very loud, but nice neighbour whom we call 'Joyce the Voice"

I think, generally, that society is louder because, in the past, in public spaces like cafes, on trains, etc. if people were sat on their own, they were usually quiet, but now they'll be talking into their mobiles, so almost everyone is talking - some louder than others!

OH & I went for a coffee yesterday in a cafe we'd not been in before. Near closing time so just us & two other women. One of them spoke loudly & it was like being in a Church....it was like she was preaching. She was about 30yrs old. The whole time we were in I felt like I was having God pushed down my throat. She wasn't even talking to us. She was still at it when we left.

Do parents still (or did they ever?) tell children to quieten down?

I meet my friend every Saturday for coffee and a catch up and during the bad weather we have had we meet in a local pub/restaurant for a couple of hours.
This past few weeks a chap has been going in for a drink with a couple of his pals and he has the loudest voice I have ever heard, I now know what motor bike he had when he was young and the cars he has owned all the differant models of pushbike he has had along with all the faults of his central heating system I am fully up to date with his love life and know what he receives for his pension,he usually sits about 6 tables away from us but we can't help but have to listen to him he is so loud.

I am not in the best of health at the moment but last week went to lunch with a group of friends. The man who sat next to me does wear a hearing aud but he shouted right through the meal. Add to that two tables of women behind us and it is a large restaurant and by the end of the meal I was feeling very battered by noise. I drove home feeling quite emotional and even had a little cry. My friend who sat with her back to the window didnt find it noisy. But everywhere seems to have become very noisy and everyone has to speak louder to be heard. I am not hard of hearing but my husband is deaf in one ear and is too vain to wear a hearing aid so is always tell me to speak up. I do so love some silence.

My dad used to call anyone like that “the voice that breathed over Eden”! I don’t know what it means literally but I use it about one of our neighbours who bellows out. I know what you mean about a woman’s voice that is loud and harsh. I have a soft voice and can’t get myself heard sometimes. I bet my husband would laugh at that and exclaim how loud he thinks I am!

I was sitting on the train not long ago at a table seat. The woman sitting across from me had shrunk down in her seat and was clearly having great difficulty with her breathing. She wheezed and struggled to draw in every breath, sighing with the effort and frustration every so often. As she struggled more and more and shrank further down in her seat, I was on the verge of asking if she wanted me to get help for her, however before I could ask, she took her phone from her bag and made a call. When the person at the other end answered, this tiny woman rose in her seat and bellowed into the phone ' DAAARRR-LING - IT'S ME!' and continued her conversation in a voice so loud and strong it made every head in the carriage turn!

I am a retired teacher and I hope I don't speak too loudly. DH often accuses me of mumbling (he is slightly deaf). I tried not to raise my voice when teaching, as speaking quietly makes people listen more attentively to what is being said. in my experience. Agree about the sound of groups of people in cafes and pubs being a bit intrusive, though this is sometimes due to the acoustics of the building.

Ooh. I felt a bit guilty reading this thread as I grew up in a very crowded household where if you didn’t shout you didn’t get heard. Although I’m much better now, I can still get louder if necessary. The thing I hate most about my voice though is my laugh. If it’s something mildly funny, I sort of chuckle in a slightly sinister way but if it’s hilarious, my first sound is really high pitched. A sort of ‘ha’ before I’ve actually started to laugh. I’ve heard myself on videos. It’s awful and it sometimes makes people jump. It comes so naturally though I don’t know how not to as laughter is spontaneous and shouldn’t be switched on and off. So apologies but I’m not a bad person!

I have become noise sensitive in recent years in crowds. Apparently, it’s normal. Also, deaf when there is background noise, also normal. So I struggle to hear and wonder if I shout but also hate all the ‘babble’ going on around me. Makes my head spin.

It’s also annoying when people speak really quietly though. I hate saying ‘Pardon’ over and over again. I usually say it once, maybe twice, then I smile and say ‘Oh right and laugh nervously’ which isn’t a good thing to do if someone was trying to tell you someone has just died.

One of my sons has been trained in voice projection. Sadly, he wasn’t trained on voice switch off again. So you can hear him upstairs from downstairs. Fortunately, he has a nice voice though so it’s not piercing. Just loud.

Takes allsorts I suppose. And I shall apologise for my awful laugh

There are some folk who do seem to dominate in the loud voice department. I'm convinced a lot if young people speak loudly due to playing music, ear phones, too loudly. Also they are accustomed now to speaking on phones outside where their voice just to them, disappears. Children too seem to be even more noisy again accustomed to noisy households. I am sorely tempted to just join in a "loud" conversation saying to the guilty party "you obviously want all to know what you are saying so you must want a response or comment or two".

By the way my husband is hearing impaired and even he doesn't speak as loudly in a public place as some of those without the disability.

Teachers do tend to be assertive. There are several in my group of friends, and they seem to do more than their fair share of conversing. I'm the opposite, and have the kind of voice that isn't noticed. I get 'talked over' quite a lot, and am more of a listener than a speaker. I'm a little deaf, too. Even with hearing-aids it's sometimes difficult to follow conversations when there is a lot of background noise.
One thing I DO wonder is, are all Americans as loud as they appear on tv? I caught an American 'house-makeover' programme the other day. Oh. the histrionics. The screaming, yelling and drama of it all. I mentally compared it to DIY SOS, which I really enjoy, and switched it off in the middle. I couldn't take any more!

Yeah RosieLeah we all know irritating people like this; one comes to my house far too often but since she is invited by ‘she who must be obeyed’ and is going out with her favourite son I just have to grin and bear it. Bloody irritating though and I usually retire hurt with a headache when she finally buggers off home

Yes B9exchange I’m with you there. All the fashionable hard surfaces exaggerate noise and I too I long for the days when cafes and restaurants had carpets on the floor, curtains at the windows, and tablecloths, it did absorb so much of the noise! In fact there are various cafes, pubs etc the OH and I now avoid, because the noise levels are so uncomfortable.
Nope - can’t stand those, male or female, in restaurants, cafes pubs who want everyone to hear their conversations. And what they want the world to hear is so often absolute garbage. What’s the saying “Empty vessels make much noise” or something similar.?

The ones who really make me wince are the women on a 'girls night' who've had a few too many Proseccos, the shrieking, and lewd remarks really make me cringe.
They sound like a farmyard of turkeys.