the.com/vocal fold
Two flaps of flesh gossiping fast enough to become your voice.
means The pair of muscle-and-membrane bands in your larynx that vibrate as air passes through them, producing the sound of your voice.
from From Latin vocalis, 'speaking, sounding,' from vox, 'voice,' plus 'fold,' simply describing the folded shape of the tissue stretched across the larynx. For a long stretch they were called 'vocal cords,' a 19th-century term imagining them as taut strings like a musical instrument's; 'vocal folds' is the more anatomically accurate modern name, since they're really pliable flaps of mucous membrane and muscle, not strings at all — they flap and vibrate rather than simply twang.
- vibration rate
- flutter 100 to 1000 times per second
- material
- layered mucosa, not muscle alone, like vibrating jello
- misnomer
- called cords but shaped like folds, not strings
- overuse injury
- screaming can raise blister like nodules on them