They Could Be Voice-Cousins

I watched C-SPAN on Friday night; a live Senate broadcast. Last time I tuned in I came to appreciate how very much John Boehner sounds like Tom Hanks. Like, a lot. This time: more discoveries. First, Al Franken can play boring. Also, Ben Nelson is a very ugly man. I don't know that this is widely appreciated, and I don't want to be mean, but that's an unfortunate appearance. However, the phenomenon I am most interested in is that Dick Durbin sounds like Marty Funkhouser (Bob Einstein) of Curb Your Enthusiasm. It's not pitch perfect, but I really think they could be voice-cousins. I think you hear it best if Durbin is speaking with some passion, so listen to this clip (tune in at twenty-seven seconds) to hear the resemblance to good old Marty. One of my regular pastimes during t.v. or movie watching is to come up with three-person composites for who people look like. I think C-SPAN has turned me on to a new kick. I gladly call on you all to submit your congressional (and other unintentional) sound-alikes.

However, the biggest question is what to call these coincidences. We have doppelganger, double, and look-alike for visual resemblances. What, however, do we do about sound? That is, what do you call someone who sounds like somebody else? Or, as in the Durbin-Funkhouser example, the somewhat-alike occurence? Has this been investigated? Has the word-hunting back page of The Atlantic been alerted to this need? Is the United Nations awere? And if we find the right word, would it be really important or not important? Is this neologism ready to be the unfriend of 2010? I say Impressionist/Impersonation is out of the question because that involves an effort that is totally absent from look-alikes. Similarly mimic and all words that tend toward self-awareness on the part of the double. If my internet translating skills are sharp, the German equivalent would be doppelgesunder - double-sounder. Could that catch on? I kind of wish it would; Imagine walking through a mall and actually thinking, "Whoa, that lady is totally Mrs. G's doppelgesunder." This foray into German also raises the question of whether other cultures have already put this issue to bed. And, what if the plain term sound-alike is all we need. My fear then is that our culture doesn't care nearly as much about sounds as we do about appearances. And so it wouldn't matter one way or another what we call it, because voices are second bananas to faces. What, I ask, are we to make of voice-cousins?