Intonation refers to the specific up and down pattern of pitches that make up the melody of American English.  We can identify the type of sentences we say by their unique melody and how we end them.   There are four sentence patterns in American English:  statements, “wh” questions, “yes/no” questions, and exclamations.   Our pitch goes up and down and then ends in a certain way, so that your listener immediately knows which type of sentence you are using by the specific up and down pitch pattern you use.  This is a fundamental skill of American English to remember when learning the American accent.

It would seem that heartburn is considered a normal occurrence in the West with almost half the population of Western countries having heartburn once every month. People that experience a higher incidence of once a week may need to alter their eating manner and are still only considered to be suffering from moderate heartburn.

The real problem cases are the one fifth of the population that have two or more episodes per week and are more likely to be caused by acid reflux disorder (GERD) and will require a different type of medication.