That natty town next to Framingham
By adamg - Tue, 07/21/2009 - 8:25am.
Worcester Line commuter Phil Hochmuth alerts us via e-mail that the new automated station announcer thing on the Worcester Line was programmed to pronounce the two stops after Framingham as West Nah-tick and Nah-tick:
The conductor taking tickets laughed each time the announcement came on.
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Automated mispronunciations
The 57 bus has a stop on the Kenmore-bound route at Amory Street, just before the BU Bridge. I've learned that there are two versions of the automated announcements - a female voice and a male one, and while the male voice correctly announces Amory Street, the female voice announces "Armory" Street.
Also, I think the person who pronounced "Nattick" for the commuter rail announcements also did the announcement for the Dudley-bound #66 bus for a stop near Union Square Allston. It grates on my nerves to hear the bus announce "Hanno Street" every morning, when I've known that street since the early 1960s as "Hay-no".
41 bus
Says Moe-zart Street. Right after it pronounces "Estrella Street" properly. What?
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
Pet Peeve Of Mine
Being a local voice talent and hearing somebody hired outside of the area mispronounce local towns, cities, streets, etc.
Anyway, simple reading and pronunciation skills should NEVER bring someone to the conclusion that it's pronounced NAT-ick, or NAH-tik, or anything other than NAY-tik. There are rare exceptions, but a single vowel, before a single consonant which is followed by a vowel, should always be considered long, if you haven't seen the word before and haven't been instructed otherwise. Not only are they hiring non-local voice talents, they're hiring illiterate voice talents.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Bless you, Suldog!
It's nice to know there's someone else out there who remembers the basic rules of grammar and pronunciation. Obviously when dealing with place names one can get burned but for the most part the rule sticks. We're talking about 'Natick' here, not 'Haverhill' or 'Leicester'.
How about....
automatic
dramatic
latin
satin
paten
I submit it all depends on the word derivation. No real general rule.
;~}
MEK
(NSBC, 1965)
As I Said...
... there are exceptions. In some instances, you infer the pronunciation from the context, i.e., primer, which is pronounced differently if the subject is painting, not learning. But what I stated is more often true than not, thus the general rule that should be followed by competent voice-over professionals.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
With all due respect...
...I shall continue to differ with you on this topic.
MEK
(NSBC, 1965)
OK, Michael, No Sweat
I'm not trying to start an argument. I was just letting off steam, airing my grievances a bit in advance of Festivus :-)
I voice scripts, and edit recordings of other people's readings, all day. It gets wearying to hear those sorts of mistakes from our talents and then have to go back to them for pick ups. Since you're not one of them, I feel no need to jump down your throat in order to pull out a correct read :-)
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
I think we can agree
If one is not absolutely certain of the pronunciation of a word, one needs to look it up.
Place names are particularly problematic, though -- for instance, the "proper" (or at least official) pronunciation of Goethe St. in Chicago is Goe-ee-thee Street.;~}
MEK
(NSBC, 1965)
Oh, Indeed
Houston, Texas, as opposed to Houston Street in NYC, is another excellent example.
You've nailed my main peeve here, though. It's that the voice talent (or the producer, since he/she is the one with ultimate responsibility) needs to ask if there is a specific pronunciation for a place name. Barring that - if, for instance, the talent mistakenly believes that he or she knows what it is, and records it incorrectly - then the one who contracted the speaker should have it corrected. That T management did not do so, and uses the faulty recording, is inexcusable.
(BTW, for your side of the argument, I'll note that "proper" doesn't follow the rule, either :-) )
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Our favorite T mecho-announcer error
On the Route 50 Bus, going down Washington Street, Durnell Avenue some how got turned into "Directions Nell Avenue". aAas, this source of merriment has been corrected.
Houston Street was also "How-stun" Street in Atlanta.
Perhaps a local voice talent
Perhaps a local voice talent such as yourself should be aware of the difference between a recording and a computer " reading" off what its given.
To get the computer to read it right, you need to spell the stops phonetically. " next stop, Naytick"
Hey, You Want To Get All Snide, J?
I'm a producer as well as a voice talent, J, which you would have known if your reading comprehension skills didn't automatically stop at "snide and snarky". I edit stuff for computer and telephony usage all day, every day. And YOU don't know dick about what's going on in this instance.
A computer putting vocal sounds together is what Stephen Hawking's voice is since he contracted Lou Gehrig's disease and can't supply his own voice. This is nothing like that. It is not a computer just stringing sounds together to make words. All of the words - street names, towns, whatever else - have been recorded by a voice talent, in full, and then programmed to be read off as each vehicle passes a certain trigger point.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Humans > computers
Years ago, for a class, I spent a long time hand-tuning the computer speech synthesis for dramatic readings of 2 or 3 particular sentences.
Two observations: (1) once your expectations have been lowered so much by the speech synthesizer's first cut, and you've spent hours identifying and addressing the subtleties, it's impressive how much improvement you can make; (2) human voice talent can do much better.
Who are you to say Im
Who are you to say Im ignorant on the subject?
The subway uses voice talent like you said. Irts easy enough when theres a fixed number of stations.
However a bus route isnt fixed. One day bus 189 might come along with a bunch of new street stops, and the MBTA wont be paying someoen tor ecord it.
The buses, the new automated anouncements at south station, some of the automated anouncements in stations and probably what theyre using on commter rail, is stephen hawkings style computer created voice, albeit a better sounding one than mr hawkings
T in-house voice talent
IIRC, the MBTA has a man on staff who does voice talent stuff for them on the side. The Globe or someone did a feature on him, I think maybe roughly a year ago?
Good Lord, J, Just Stop
J - I've given you my credentials. I've been doing this work for 20 years.
NeilV - Yes, I met their in-house voice talent at a T function a couple of years back. Very nice fellow.
For J's edification, he does the bus announcements, and it's not a big hairy deal for him to record 15 or 20 new announcements if need be. The whole process - recording, editing, formatting - might take two hours, tops.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Off-topic
Voice talent makes for compelling video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQRtuxdfQHw
I'll Say This, As A Possibility
I haven't been on every bus route or every commuter rail line. The possibility exists that the type of mechano-voice you speak of, J, may be present on one that I haven't been on. OK?
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Do a Google search ...
I just did a google search for the "voice of the MBTA"
VIOLA! The first result: http://www.mbta.com/about_the_mbta/news_events/?id=16887&month=3&year=09
It wasn't hard. Try it sometime.
Similar in Somerville
Bus 80 goes through either mc-goon or mc-gow-an square depending on the male vs. female bus announcer.
Do the automated commuter rail announcements use
recordings of actual voices, or do they rely soley on machine generated voices? Mispronunciations and other anomolies are often commonplace in announcements that use segments of machine generated voices to generate messages as opposed to actual recordings of real voices.
One recurring favorite of mine is National Weather Service broadcasts that refer to (for example) Route 495 as "Route Four Hundred Ninety Five".
Roadman - See Reply To "J" Above, Minus The Insults
All of the parts for the buses and subway trains are recorded in full, not pieced together. I don't know about commuter rail, since I've never heard them, but I would assume they're the same.
None of them, to my knowledge, are just a computer-generated string of sounds being put together to form words and sentences.
(I've actually met the male voice of the T at a function I attended, and discussed his work, so I have more knowledge of it than just that of my own personal experiences recording similar things.)
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
How does this explain....
things like Route 50's former "Directions (unnaturally long pause) Nell (another noticeable pause) Avenue"? I note the too long pauses in other less messed up announcements -- which certainly makes them sound computer-generated -- in one way or another.
Bad Editing Job?
Or bad software. Those would be my first two guesses.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Take a Bow
I've been on the #87 bus in Union Square, Somerville, when the automated voice announced "Bow Street" -- to rhyme with "cow".
Now boarding on Track 3: train to Stawton
The robot at Back Bay announces the "ough" in Stoughton like "ought".
It's true!
This provided no small measure of amusement for riders on the train this morning.