HAS THE WHOLE country been sucking on helium balloons?

And if you think that's bad, you should hear how girls are talking.

Last month, the public radio program "Marketplace" aired a story on the prevalence of grown women speaking in high-pitched, babyish voices. It cited the example of Monica M. Goodling, the 33-year-old attorney (and Justice Department appointee) who testified before Congress in a voice that seemed more appropriate to Smurfette than to a government official with something to say about fired U.S. attorneys. "Marketplace" suggested that this girlish cadence signaled a feminist backlash, a sonic corollary to bikini waxes and baby-doll dresses.

I'm wary of slapping the trend label on any old phenomena, but I do wonder if this baby-voice thing is on the upswing. I listen to a lot of talk radio (the perils of working from home are legion), and I'm consistently amazed at the number of female callers who, despite seeking advice about their second mortgage or their third divorce, sound like they're 12. In real life, too, serious business is being conducted in the style of a Chipmunks recording. I recently overheard a woman who looked like an executive yammering on her cellphone in the same voice you hear in talking dolls. If you closed your eyes, you'd swear she was wearing a onesie. In fact, she was in a Marc Jacobs suit.

I called Bob Corff, a Los Angeles speech coach, who has been working for 27 years with actors, broadcasters and other professionals who need to sound good, and asked what he thought about the baby-voice syndrome.

"Many women have voices that do not match their bodies," he told me. "One of the reasons I think women do it is that it's nonthreatening. In this country, we push the little-girl thing, whereas in Europe, it's more popular to be a woman. Even the movie stars here are girlish."