What's your pet peeve in RL?

[Aksannyi]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

I speak perfect English and I enunciate very strongly while speaking. I always have. So please explain to me why voice activated automated systems never understand me. Ever. And nowadays they don't even have "Say or press 1," they just expect you to speak. WHAT IF I WAS MUTE? Or even better, WHAT IF I DON'T WANT TO GIVE MY BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER OUT LOUD BECAUSE I'M IN A PLACE WHERE OTHERS MIGHT HEAR IT?

Fuck. I hate this bullshit so much. And all of this would be avoided if your fucking website wasn't down ... again ...

[Firewind]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

The ridiculous number of accents, dialects, afflictions and verbal tics that people have mean that voice activation or voice control is something we are years away from even getting remotely right.

I think the main reason why I never use Siri anymore is because yelling "SIRI! HOW DO A HIRE AN ASSASSIN?" or "WHERE CAN I BUY WEAPONS GRADE PLUTONIUM?" in a public place got old after a while.

[Aksannyi]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

The worst part is I have no accent at all. I speak pure American English. I could understand if I did have an accent. Not only that, I speak slowly and clearly. I just don't get it.

- - - Updated - - -

Fucking FOX affiliate, I am watching SYTYCD. It's live. I was enjoying that. You didn't need to interrupt the show to tell me about the tornado warning that I can already read scrolling across the screen. What the fuck.

[Feba]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

You do realize that "pure" American English (come on, at least call it standard, we're not out to wipe the bloodlines here) is also an accent, right? Everyone has an accent, some people are just closer to their national/regional standard.


/languagenerd

[cidbahamut]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

Isn't there supposed to be an area in the midwest that has the most generic English in the world to the point where anyone who speaks English in any capacity can understand it?

[Fliegar]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

JonTron left Game Grumps. Not that I hate the new guy or anything, but I didn't expect to actually be sad that Jon left.

[Feba]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

cid, of course there is no such thing as "generic English", or any other language for that matter. There are only standards (as decided by government agencies in many languages, or by the Strunk and Whites, Websters, Oxfords and what-not in our more democratized English), and a question of how far you deviate from that standard -- the farther you deviate, the more standard speakers will have difficulty in understanding you. But then, there are "standards" of other languages and dialects;

For example, in Britain, the "standard" dialect is Received Pronunciation, as used on the BBC. However, only a small percentage of English persons actually speak in RP; regional dialects are very common (actually, there's probably more linguistic variance within England than across most of the US, for various cultural and historic reasons. Also, the changes that happen across dialects have patterns, such that some areas of England have accents quite resembling ebonics in the US, but anyway). If you've watched anime, you've probably seen people speaking mostly in the Tokyo dialect, with the occasional character who comes in speaking as an Osakan would.

I've been living in Taiwan for the past couple years; the main language spoken here is Mandarin Chinese, but the style is significantly "softer" than the world-standard of Mandarin, Beijing. This is an interesting point, as both countries maintain standards of the language, which are not purely copies of the language as it is spoken in real life. If you think of "Mandarin" as roughly corresponding to "English", you can see how there are many different levels and standards within it; including many different words in Chinese. Generally speaking, Chinese is referred to as Zhongwen ("Middle Lingua"; Zhongguo being the "Middle Country" you've probably heard China referred to as, "wen" being used used mainly to refer to literature, but also to spoken languages.) in general; largely for political neutrality and historical reasons. This can also include written Chinese which isn't necessarily being used by Mandarin speakers. Putonghua ("Normal Speech") is the standard as advanced by the PRC, which is heavily based on Beijinghua (Beijing Dialect) [If you're ever in Taiwan, make jokes about Daluqiang, Mainland Accent. People love it.]; The ROC (Taiwan) government has a slightly differing standard, called Guoyu (National Language), but there's also Taiwanguoyu ("Taiwanese Mandarin"), which is basically a heavy Taiwanese accent, which comes from Taiwanese, which is actually Fujianese, but has significant differences even within different cities on the island, but anyway this is all "Chinese", so...

Point being, never think that there's such a thing as a "pure" or "generic" form of a language. There are standards, and they are entirely artificial social constructs. Not to say that standards are bad things, but human language is a process of constant change and evolution, even within standards. Written language gives an impress of what is "correct"; but then go ahead and read documents from over a hundred years ago, and see how wildly different spelling and grammar can be.

As to your remark, I have heard many times from my mother that Des Moines is very popular for aspiring reporters, as the mid-west accent comes across as very "neutral American" to people all across the states. If this is easy for foreigners to understand as well, it is doubtlessly thanks to the prevalence of American media; Hollywood has done more to promote American English as a lingua franca than any linguistic standards body in the history of mankind. Kinda like how Egyptian Arabic is a standard spoken form, not so much because Egypt is universally loved, so much as that much Arabic television comes out of Egypt.

[Taskmage]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

General American or Standard American English is the American version of British Received Pronunciation, being widely used on television especially by news anchors, and is the accent that people train towards when trying to efface their regional accent. It's also the accent most commonly taught to people learning English as a second language. Geographically, this accent is most similar to that used in much of Iowa including Des Moines, eastern Nebraska, and parts of Illinois not including Chicago. Paraphrased from wikipedia.

[DakAttack]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

I ranted an aapaatmant neuh Baastaan Yaad. I faated an the daag.

[Firewind]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

For example, in Britain, the "standard" dialect is Received Pronunciation, as used on the BBC. However, only a small percentage of English persons actually speak in RP; regional dialects are very common (actually, there's probably more linguistic variance within England than across most of the US, for various cultural and historic reasons. Also, the changes that happen across dialects have patterns, such that some areas of England have accents quite resembling ebonics in the US, but anyway). If you've watched anime, you've probably seen people speaking mostly in the Tokyo dialect, with the occasional character who comes in speaking as an Osakan would.

I'll chime in and add that Received Pronunciation isn't even an actual accent spoken here, it was something the BBC used to insist on people using but not any more. You would be very hard pressed to find anyone that even speaks it "naturally". More common is what is known as an "Estuary" accent which is actually as generic a naturally occurring South East or London accent you can get. It's actually what the BBC have started using as well.

I think the only two people who do still speak in RP are Rowan Atkinson and Christopher Lee.

Actually if you want a good example of how British people actually sound like, play Xenoblade Chronicles or any other game dubbed in the UK. Also I'll say right now that Dragon Age and Mass Effect do NOT count, it is Canadians doing the majority of the voice acting there and it is painfully obvious. That said DAII does have actual British Voice Actors. Hawke's VAs are British and Bethany's VA actually comes from my hometown. Merrill's VA uses a pretty natural Welsh accent too. It's only Avaline's VA who isn't actually a Brit, she's Danish. The rest of the party are quite obviously done by US and Canadian actors.

TV Tropes actually does have a very good article on British accents along with examples of them being used in media: British Accents - Television Tropes & Idioms

[Melody]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

Is this the part where I go.

[Jarre]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

Doesnt like the scottish accent

[Taskmage]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

The first AI capable of interpreting that accent will be powered by dilithium crystals.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

I lost it at "There's no need for profanity." XD

[Aksannyi]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

Dude ... Jarre ... I'm dying over here.

That's pretty much how I react when automated systems don't understand me. Except for the throwing my phone part, I got really good at not doing that.