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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| Southern Drawls Confuse La. Phone System |
| 2003-11-17 |
| EFL & Buttloads of Fun! Southern drawls have thwarted voice recognition equipment used by the Shreveport Police Department to route non-emergency calls. The voice-recognition system asked people to name the person or department they wanted. More often than not, the system just didn’t understand, and they wound up at the wrong place, said Capt. John Dunn, who oversees police communications. "In Louisiana, we have a problem with Southern drawl and what I call lazy mouth. Because of that, the system often doesn’t recognize what (callers) say," he said. When asked to comment on this problem |
| Posted by:Dragon Fly |
| #11 Matt - since I have a cousin who owns a pecan orchard in Dry Prong, and who sends me a couple of pounds every year, it's kinda hard to ignore the town... There are hundreds of weird names for towns in the state (Waterproof, on the banks of the Mississippi...) - I was trying to point out that the population is not all lazy whites or fast-talking Cajuns, but a very diverse group that makes stereotyping them rather difficult. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-11-17 7:38:56 PM |
| #10 OP, don't forget about Des Allemands and Dry Prong. |
| Posted by: Matt 2003-11-17 3:31:28 PM |
| #9 Cajun is only one of a dozen problems in Louisiana that makes voice recognition a problem. I wonder - did anyone bother to test the system out thoroughly before implementing it? Or was this another case of it's-high-tech-so-it-HAS-to work? |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2003-11-17 2:49:05 PM |
| #8 An idea would be to have a voice recognition system who would not recognize Yankee accent. :-) |
| Posted by: JFM 2003-11-17 2:07:22 PM |
| #7 Let us be polite about Louisiana, or I'll have to get out the nukes again... I spent the first seventeen years of my life there, still have too many relatives and friends that live in that state, to NOT take offence, even when it IS "Buttload funny". Cajun is only one of a dozen problems in Louisiana that makes voice recognition a problem. The third-largest Vietnamese community in the United States is centered near Houma. Within thirty miles of where I grew up, just north of Alexandria, there's a large Czech community (towns named Kolin, etc.), a respectable German community (Jena, anyone?), and a fairly large Polish community (Pollock? - really a town name!). Throw that much into the voice recognition soup and you have an impossible situation. Made it fun in school, though... |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-11-17 2:07:02 PM |
| #6 NAWLINS! Dahmn yankees... |
| Posted by: mojo 2003-11-17 1:22:07 PM |
| #5 That would be aw-per-ray-ta. Sho some class. BTW it's pronounced New Orleans not New Orlean. |
| Posted by: Lucky 2003-11-17 1:15:00 PM |
| #4 What's wrong with a selection system?? "Iffen y'all are havin' uh dumb-ess-tick prawblem, press wun." "Iffen y'all are riportin' a ber-gler-ree, press two." "Iffen y'all are riportin' a stow-lin vee-hickle, press three." "Fer awl uther cawls, pleeze stay awn th' lahn, an' an aw-per-ray-ter will be awn th' lahn shawrtly tuh speak witchew." |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2003-11-17 1:04:24 PM |
| #3 In Louisiana there is not only the dread Southern drawl,but also a hybrid French-English-Spanish-Southern accent.Voice recognition systems have problems with most accents-including New England ones.The school solution is to speak slowly and clearly,often hard to do in an emergency. |
| Posted by: Stephen 2003-11-17 1:01:18 PM |
| #2 Because then the computer system would get shiftless and develop a taste for clay. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2003-11-17 12:47:36 PM |
| #1 Why don't they just bring someone with a Southern drawl in and record it, then enter the data in as part of the voice recognition system? |
| Posted by: Charles 2003-11-17 12:38:05 PM |