Noel N
5 HN mentions · mentioned in 4 months, 2019–2022
3:36 · 3.9M views · Sep 5, 2010
A sketch from the Scottish comedy show Burnistoun in which two men cannot get a voice-recognition elevator to understand the word eleven in their accents.
Used as a joke whenever voice interfaces and accents come up, and shared as a Scottish comedy sample.
5 comments from Hacker News
I was going to suggest something similar; listening/watching English TV which doesn't have the received-pronounciation. Other good choices would be "Yes Minister" (original series), "Fawlty Towers", and for extra-credit you should absolutely try to watch "Rab C. Nesbitt" (which is set in Glasgow. I'd suggest that Only Fools & Horses (after the second/third series) is pretty understandable to all British people, but a lot more would struggle with the Scottish accents. Here's a brief sample, and another Scottish themed comedy sketch: [LINK] this video
Audiobooks have a very small number of accents. Often they’re recorded by middle-aged, or older men with a standard accent. (Think newscasters, and most actors) One of the advantages of CommonVoice is that breadth of voices. By having more, and different types of voices, you can build a more robust system, which works for more people. For instance, my wife is a nonnative English speaker, and had trouble for years using Siri. Alexa can’t understand small children. And of course, elevators can’t understand Scottish accents. this video
> We take a voice-first approach That sounds like a nightmare. So you have to forcibly silence everyone in the car to do anything? Even if I'm alone I would prefer silence and pushing buttons instead of having a conversation with a machine. Obligatory reference, if you haven't seen it: Scottish Elevator: this video
Two reasons to resist using voice commands 1. Do not want to talk in the loud-clear voice needed for them to work (e.g. someone else in car is on their phone, kids are sleeping). 2. Completely soured on the experience due to things like this[1] 1: this video
Had to look up the skit. Thank you for the laugh. The link for those wishing to watch and skip a google search: this video