Cher effect

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 9:55 AM, David A. Daniel <dad at pokerwiz.com> wrote:
>
> Someone here asked something about Sonny and Cher recently - don't remember
> who or what at the mo. Anyway, as a result, I went poking around in Cher
> searches and stumbled upon the "Cher effect".  It seems to have become a
> standard term in the music recording biz, and I don't see it in any
> dictionaries to which I have access. This does not include OED for the time
> being, so I don't know if they have it or not. The term has been around for
> almost exactly 10 years, which I believe qualifies it for consideration.
> Anyway, submitted here, FWIW. Cher Effect - in sound recording,
> overcorrecting pitch to achieve a semi-artificial voice sound effect. (See
> Wikipedia and 8,000 or so other refs.)

Nowadays also called the "T-Pain effect", after a hiphop artist who
uses Auto-Tune software for pitch correction, similar to the vocal
processing on Cher's "Believe" a decade ago.


--Ben Zimmer

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org