A whisper is very low speaking, usually so that only the recipient can hear what is being said.
Whisper is a term in our language that comes from the Latin word susurrus and refers to speaking very quietly and softly . By extension, the low intensity sound made by certain things is called a whisper.
For example: “She told me in a whisper that she had been responsible for the phone call” , “The only thing that can be heard at this time is the whisper of the sea” , “Can you stop speaking in whispers? "I can't hear you."
speak in whispers
People speak in whispers when they do not want a third party to hear what they say . Suppose a child wants to confess to his older brother that he broke a vase, but he does not want this confession to reach his mother. In this way, the little boy approaches his brother and tells him what happened in whispers. His mother, not being so close, cannot perceive the conversation.
Whispers can also help build a climate of intimacy or closeness . This causes the members of a couple , in certain contexts and occasions, to communicate with whispers to tell each other certain things.
The ideas of intimacy and closeness come into play since to hear a whisper it is necessary to be a short distance from the source, and to do this we usually put our ear close to the sender's mouth, something that only two people with a certain degree of trust between can do. they usually do, with exceptions. Thanks to this action, it is possible to transmit messages privately to prevent others from hearing them, either because they deal with topics that do not concern them or because they are critical of them, for example.
Whispers are common in a couple.
The concept in singing
In vocal music , whispering is a widely used resource, especially in popular singing, to transmit various sensations and moods . When a singer must express passion, discouragement, sweetness or tiredness, among many other things, he can take advantage of this way of using his voice to achieve it without much effort or technical knowledge; On the other hand, not everyone manages to do it convincingly and with good taste, since even when whispering issues such as voice timbre, placement, intonation and articulation of sounds come into play.
It is also possible to use whispering in singing to reduce the intensity of the voice when one does not have sufficient technical level, since professional singers with adequate training must be able to sustain the column of air that passes through their vocal cords and Control the volume of the flow, to increase or decrease the intensity of the sound as desired. In opera it must be done this way, and whispering is only accepted in isolated moments for expressive reasons, but very few people use it, especially in small rooms or with exceptional acoustics.
Beyond people, various elements of nature are attributed the “ability” to whisper (that is, to emit whispers). The wind and the sea , in this sense, can generate a faint sound that is usually described as a whisper.
Whispers in horror movies
“Whispers of Terror” , for its part, is the title by which the American film “Whisper” was known in Argentina , starring Sarah Wayne Callies and Josh Holloway .
Regarding terror, it is curious that whispering not only serves to generate moments of intimacy and to express sweet words, but also for irony and even intimidation. In films of this genre, this element is very recurring since it confuses its protagonists and alters them emotionally.
The Japanese animated film “Mimi wo sumaseba” , finally, was translated as “Whispers of the Heart” for the Spanish-speaking market .