I mean, look at this doll. She's a badass. There's no time for creepy!

So I love this little blog post in defense of the old, "creepy" Edison talking dolls. It's clever, funny, and defuses a lot of the negative buzz about these early talking dolls.

Now I admit, I admit, the voices of these dolls are often grating, shrill, and more of an assault on my ears than anything else; I'm not sure why they didn't just use a genuine little girl voice instead of an adult woman shrieking nursery rhymes in a high pitched voice.

Haha, I guess vocal recording was still in its infancy, and no one could say for sure what the end result of trying to project over primitive equipment (in a fake little girl voice) would be. Well it's not pretty, but let's applaud Edison for his innovation if nothing else.

And go figure, I'm more interested in the particular enunciation of these dolls and their cargo of voices from the 1800s. My inner geek can't help itself because I can detect certain speaking nuances and an "accent" that I remember hearing in very elderly women's voices when I was a child that I don't think I've heard since, or that I can find anymore. These were probably the last vestiges of a bygone era of the late 1800s/ early 1900s in terms of the way we used to speak, because language is constantly evolving and changing, and we can't expect it to be quite the same today as it was 100+ years ago. From a linguistic point of view (and I have a minor in linguistics) it's fascinating!

Ok 'nuff geek stuff; just want to say I liked the article and it made me laugh, and I love when people can step up and cut right through the typical knee-jerk reactions like this and allow us to have a little humor about it.