THEEEEENKS

I've noticed a disturbingly frequent tendency
among young American women to pronounce "thank you"
with an ear-piercing long "e" sound, as I have dramatically
illustrated above.  It seems especially prevalent in the service
industry.  This trend does not appear to be limited to a specific
geographical region;  I hear it in the speech of women from Boston
to Orange County.  Rather, I think it is a kind of learned
behavior, psychologically reinforced on young women by their
environment.  It also seems to be confined to "pretty" girls.  Not
necessarily those that I would consider
pretty, mind, but the kind of girls who are told from a very early
age that they are pretty, and are subsequently bred into size-0,
reed-thin, sorority girls with bleached blond hair and acid-stained
teeth.

Anyone else witness this interesting psycholinguistic phenomenon?