Well, that’s probably why she couldn’t hear you.
“General American is an accent…”
My apologies for the mis-understanding.
Actually, there is an interesting vowell shift that occurs in the Michigan-Ohio-Pennsylvania region which is shared with Texas. The vowell ‘e’ gets the ‘i’ sound. ‘The pencil costs ten cents’ ends up sounding a little like ‘The pincil costs tin cints’.
Yes, indeed it is. However, as a standard when someone is trying to eliminate an accent they are taught to shift pronounciation to General American.
I used to be the guy in office to whom they’d transfer the customers who are stuck in the seventies.
Yes, I speak jive.
This has too be the funniest thing I think I’ve ever read. I laughed so hard my family ran into the room thinking I had snapped. Thank you and God bless you tdn. I needed that, my brother is dying and I’ve really been under stress.
Were you calling from your cell? Maybe you had a bad connection?
You know, there might be something to this. Whenever we visit the US, I have much more difficulty being understood than my husband, and he says it is because of my “accent” - I enunciate quite clearly. If I mumble more, people seem to understand me better. Weird, eh?
I think there is a strong cultural bias with some people (culture including teenagers) whereby if they hear someone speak differently or with an accent, the brain stops listening. Instead all the listener hears is the voice inside their own head saying, “They talk all funny.”
Oh man. When I asked at the pharmacy for my mother-in-law’s precription, which was under the name “Sherwood”, the tech was unable to locate the prescription under “Surewould” or something.
Telling the tech, “Sherwood, like the forest” didn’t help, nor did spelling it verbally. I had to write it down (and you can believe I did my very best kindergarten block printing) before she was able to find the damn pills.
Please just spell your name for people and don’t get all huffy. As someone who takes names over the phone a lot for my job I have heard every different spelling possible for every different name, and it would be bad for me to misspell someone’s name. It is also possible to be misheard, have a bad connection, or maybe there was a sudden noise that distracted the person or made you difficult to hear. Is it really so hard to say 5 letters?
The way Isee it, everyone has an accent. My brit friendss an I used to jokingly argue about who has an accent. Thy told me that I had an american accent which to their ears must sound as different as their accents do to me. Anbd of course, people with southern accents don’t sound like what I consider “no accent”.
My wife id from the midwest and she has said that I pronounce words differently than she does. (I am from the east coast, Delaware/Pennsylvania/Maryland area). She says I say words like “bury” to sound like “berry” and “frog” like “Frawgg”.
Its subtle, but people from different areas have different accents.
I would believe it. At one of the restaurants near here they had two girls in their early 20’s working the Drive-Thru one afternoon, BOTH deaf. Not totally deaf of course, but they both wear hearing aids, they’re just so short on people at some of these places. One of the girls has moved on, but the other is still working there and is really a good worker, but she struggles noticeably at times. She’s messed up my order a few times but not very badly, it’s just a coffee shop (Tim Horton’s), once in a while I get a French Vanilla instead of a coffee, meh.
How does she think those words are supposed to sound?
I think you’re typing with an accent.
(I pronounce “bury” as “burree” and “frog” as “frog”.)
And most of them probably realize early on that a job that requires a lot of voice communication may not be the best choice for them.
There are plenty of people who are blind or have some kind of visual impairment, as well. But I think most of them realize that they should probably steer clear of Professional Sniper or Air Traffic Controller.
Hm, this is not like my life at all. I have a hyphenated last name (don’t blame me, my parents gave it to me) and no one EVER EVER EVER gets it. Neither of my last names are particularly odd when taken separately, but run together it sounds bizarre if you don’t know what you’re listening for.
When I give my name on the phone, I say it and spell it immediately afterwards, unless I have reason to think they already have my name up on a computer (like if I had to punch in an account number before talking to a human).
It works for me. People very rarely get it wrong, probably because they really do have to listen to get it right. OTOH, so many people think they know how to spell my first name before I spell it out that they often write it wrong AS I AM SPELLING IT OUT FOR THEM.
Guy at deli: What’s your name?
Me: Kyla. K-Y-L-A.
Guy writes down K-A-Y-L-A.
Me, internally: It’s four fucking letters, dumbass. You can’t even pay attention for the length of time it took for me to spell that out? Jesus.
Phones cut out high frequencies. This makes /s/ and /f/ hard to distinguish, since the acoustic difference between the two is in the high frequencies.
Hey, maybe to Batswaliimajakai M’Buntufakaran your name really is exotic.
People often had trouble spelling/pronouncing/understanding my unusual & somewhat ethnic maiden name, so any time I was asked for it, I responded with “Name. N-as-in-Nancy-A-M-E.” Everyone was always grateful, and it reduced hassles. Sometimes I had to spell it twice or phonetic the other letters, but not often.
Then I married a Jones, and foolishly thought the world could spell Jones. Now I can’t win. If I say just Jones, some people hear “Joan” “John” “Johnson” “Joad” (Nice to know receptionists read The Grapes of Wrath), or what have you. Many ask me to spell it. But if I offer the spelling of the bat like with my maiden name, 1/2 the time I get dirty looks of the “Do you think I’m an idiot? I can spell Jones” variety.