AMERICAN *TOOLS*

Hey there!

Hey there I recently purchased a cellphone with auto voice tags and I seem to can't enter the 'tools' section because the phone does not understand my pronuncation of the word.

I was just wandering if an American can post a link of them pronuncing the word 'tools' so I can get into the menu and customise the voice tags.

Thanks

You cant use the key pad? How strange. My accent wouldn't work either I'm affraid.

Can you say "two" (tu)? Put an L on the end of it.

And may I add the sudden craze for voice recognition is just another pain the ass -- I have a perfectly normal American accent, but while my car insurance company recognizes everything I say, my bank's phone line never does -- I wonder if they recognize some of the BAD words I end up saying!

I saw a funny sketch on a show called Monkey Dust. A lad ringing a cinema ticket booking line. It takes him all night to get through, and it keeps mishearing him, by the end its saying stuff like "you..have..selected..the..film..."I WANT TO TALK TO A REAL F***ING PERSON!" Please...hold...for...cinema times"

Do you not think it is a bit lazy having voice recognition for mobile phones? How hard is to press a few buttons?

Exactly, to both of you!

>>Do you not think it is a bit lazy having voice recognition for mobile phones? How hard is to press a few buttons?<<

I myself would think that it would actually be much, much easier to press a number of buttons than to try to wrange with some goddamn voice recognition software...

That should be "wrangle" above.

I have a family member with an OnStar-type car phone in her car, and to call someone you either say "call so-and-so" or "dial phone number". One thing she noticed when she first started using the dialing feature was that it wouldn't understand her 2's. Finally, she figured out that instead of saying /tu:/, she'd have to say something closer to /tyu:/, which I guess is a more 'standard' pronunciation. It still amuses us.

>>I have a family member with an OnStar-type car phone in her car, and to call someone you either say "call so-and-so" or "dial phone number". One thing she noticed when she first started using the dialing feature was that it wouldn't understand her 2's. Finally, she figured out that instead of saying /tu:/, she'd have to say something closer to /tyu:/, which I guess is a more 'standard' pronunciation. It still amuses us.<<

It (I assume you mean /tju/ here) isn't in North American English dialects, alright. However, there is the complication that /tu/ in NAE is often actually pronounced more like [tSu] (albeit often without a full fricative release) separate from yod-palatalization, and even speakers with conservative idiolects (such as my own) will realize such more like [t_ju] than like [tu] proper.

of this word "yod-palatalization"..... any takers?

>>of this word "yod-palatalization"..... any takers?<<

Shut up, troll.

"Yod-palatalization" is the palatal affrication of historical or phonemic yod (typically following a /t/ or /d/) in certain positions. One example would be how many British speakers these days say "chune" for "tune" or "juty" for "duty."

>>"Yod-palatalization" is the palatal affrication of historical or phonemic yod (typically following a /t/ or /d/) in certain positions. One example would be how many British speakers these days say "chune" for "tune" or "juty" for "duty."<<

One thing that amuses me, though, is that many NAE dialects which historically have been yod-less after alveolar consonants are effectively in the process of effectively making it as if yods were always there to begin with and have caused palatalization. It is most marked with /t/, but I do hear allophony of /d/ as [d_j] or occasionally very weakly fricated [dZ] at times before /u/ as well.