I caught Monson's final address at GC. I've got to keep certain people happy and I enjoy any hints of the physical beauty of SLC. Call me nostalgic.

Anyway, he used the strangest tone of voice; he kept raising his voice every few words, in a way that was odd even for him. He was generating emotional cues that didn't match his words.

Did anyone else notice this?

Have you ever heard him quote CS Lewis in his talks... he sounds like he is auditioning for a part in a play.
The ups and down in his voice and the facial gestures to emphasize that he has this enormousness vocabulary. His jokes are not funny too ..he always gets the obligated tabernacle sounding laugh from the audience.
He ain't no Hinckley... just wish packer was in charge right now. Packers style is Ready-fire-Aim !

it all creeps me out ..

That GA cadence is all so much BS. My god, if they have something important to say then damnit, say it. Stop with all this vocal reverberration crap and sing songy prose and spiritual innuendo and just say it.

Seen Jesus? Then say it. Stop with the word play and staring at the audience and cameras as if you are on the verge of revealing the location of the Ark of the Covenant and just be PLAIN AND SIMPLE.

They intentionally obfuscate and lead on the faithful in a way that makes it seem like they are saying something but also gives them the ability to say they've said nothing at all.

Mormonism: Having your cake and eating too.

to some extent and that presentation was the result.
These are elderly men, long steeped in Mormonese and the typical minister speak. It's different with other preachers, ministers, every church has a type of minister speak.

Generally the LDS Church's is more subdued; no shouting, repeating, audience participation, sweaty faces, emotional hype etc. Even though it's a bit of a drone, I prefer it to most of the others.I grew up in a church that did not have the minister hype-type preacher.

The women leaders in the church have, as a rule, what I call "wispy wispy" voices....those little girl voices which convey the feeling, "Please don't resent me because I'm standing at this podium lecturing to you....I'm not powerful...I have no authority." The only ones who did NOT have this horribly disturbing wispy voice were Sherry Dew and Chieko Okozaki, who were formidable. But they were released, and I noticed after their speeches at conference, the "Brethren" would smile and kind of wiggle in their seats, as if to say, "Aren't they funny?"

Monson talks as if he is telling a bedtime story to a bunch 0f 6 year olds.

Your point is that his voice was even weirder than the usual odd voices they save for conference.

Could it be a sign of dementia or a drug side effect? Did he not practice his speech with the teleprompter enough? Was he distracted?

Maybe he got a new PR coach and was trying to learn new presentation tricks.

Monson's Gen Priesthood Meeting speech had odd vocal inflections that evoked a nervous murmering in the Stake Center where I was watching.

My favorite is the fake King-James English. Pharisees.

My son is 14 and in one of his school classes they studied body language. Apparently, when someone is lying, they leave their mouth open directly after they finish speaking the lie. Monson does this when he talks. Son noticed this first at the priesthood meeting and told me about it when he came home. I told him that Monson was a very old man and maybe it was just an elderly thing but my son said he paid close attention and that Monson closed his mouth after many of his statements. He didn't on other statements, ones that we here on the board would recognize as a lie or at least BS. So the next day, we watched Monson's talk together and each time, my son pointed out this phenomenon to me. Son is right. After the more questionable claims, the Monson mouth hung open. After the more believable ones, it was closed.

Also, my son said Monson's talk in priesthood was one of the scariest things he's ever heard in his life. Monson only mentioned Jesus once but Satan lots of times. Son said he wanted to run from the room. I love it when the members do the "anti-Mormon" work for me themselves.