My dad has always had a southern accent: His words fall out of his mouth the way molasses would sound if it could speak, thick and slow. But his "KFC voice," as my sisters and I call it, is country. It's watered-down on work calls and during debates with his West Coast relatives. But it comes out around fellow cattle farmers and old friends from Kentucky, where he grew up.
Researchers at the University of Florida found that adults are increasingly weaving ChatGPT-style vocabulary into everyday speech, favoring words like 'surpass,' 'boast,' 'meticulous,' 'strategically' and 'garner.' The team analyzed 22.1 million words from unscripted and spontaneous spoken language, including conversational podcasts on science and technology. They discovered that nearly three-quarters of AI-associated words have surged in use since ChatGPT's release in 2022, with some more than doubling in frequency.