Elocution lessons
Grandad March 24th, 2009
I think I may have made a big mistake.
Over the weekend, I upgraded the software in my SatNav.
Those of you who have been following my ramblings will know how fond I am of Roger and his temperamental ways. You’ll know how I love pissing him off by refusing to follow his directions thereby giving him a hissy fit.
One aspect of Roger that I don’t think I mentioned before is his pronunciation.
Roger was obviously educated at one of those English public schools, and his diction is very precise. However, when it comes to place names outside the UK, he tends to get a bit pedantic. Irish place names give him a lot of grief, but the best of the lot are the French names.
When we brought Roger to France, he did his best. His best wasn’t good enough though, and Herself and I frequently pissed ourselves at his attempts to cope with French pronunciation.
Places like Rue des Rosiers , which should be ‘roo de rossyay’ became ‘roo-way dee rozziers’. Boulevard Périphérique and the like used to tie him up in knots altogether.
As I was saying, I upgraded the software. The first thing I noticed is that Roger is now very accurate about speed limits. He used to be fairly iffy about that and only used to display speed limits on motorways. Now he is displaying them all the time, which is handy. As we all know, they love to change speed limits frequently and illogically here in Ireland, so he has his work cut out.
The next thing I noticed was that the roads have all been updated. This saddened me, as I enjoyed driving on new roads that Roger didn’t know about. He used to think I was driving across fields, and that always sent him into an apoplectic fit. He used to plead with me to drive to the nearest road and eventually would break down in tears. I will miss that.
The other thing I discovered was that he was no longer giving phonetic pronunciations of Irish place names. I was impressed. He was speaking the names like he had been reared here. If it weren’t for the accent, I’d say he was a local.
But then I had that sinking feeling – had he learned how to pronounce French names?
When I drive in France this summer, will I be going through ‘anjey’ and ‘pwatyay’ instead of ‘angers’ and ‘po-otyerz’?
I hope not.
That would be so dull.
- On the road
- Comments(11)
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Bwhahahahaha!
We’ve been waiting for you to upgrade Roger’s software. Now between the rat-thing and Roger we’ll keep an eye on you. Oh and by the way even the french don’t know how to pronounce some of those names.
God job Roger doesn’t live in Georgia. We have French and other European named towns here. It’s unbelievable how they are pronounced.
Vienna is Vy(as in high)ena(as in Sharples)
Versaille is Versales.
Macon is Make on.
Cordele is Cor deal ya and my personal favorite is
Decatur which is Dick ate her.
This post had me in stitches. It’s about high time I got a Roger (or the female equivalent – men don’t like to ask for directions – does Roger come programmed to do that?) I wonder if I could get a SAT NAV with an Irish accent – if you think Roger’s French is bad, you should hear the Yanks! They don’t have a clue!
The CIA – If you think I’m daft enough to download upgrades without filtering out your amateurish add ins, you have another think coming. Tell your boys to stop naming files with names like ‘cia-spy.exe’.
TT – The two that amuse me here are two of the big ports – Cobh and Dún Laoghaire. They always seem to end up as ‘kob H’ and ‘dunn lagair’ instead of ‘cove’ and ‘dun leery’. I wouldn’t mind moving to Dick Ate Her?
Tricia – There is a huge range of voices. I could drive around to the melodious tones of an Aussie, or even a Yank [God help us]. I could also change languages and may do that to see what the Koreans make of our place names? Roger never asks for directions. He’s stubborn like that.
My Sat nav understands me and never judges. I have a software that enables her to laugh at all of my jokes. I wonder if I can upload it onto my blog too.
Maxi – But how did you test that software, and how do you know it works?
How the feck do you get Cove and Dunleery from those names ? I would have sworn it was Done La Whore.
Just wait until Roger starts to send notices to the local authorities that you have exceeded the speed limit.
I am also reading where in the USA they want to make SAT NAV devices mandatory, so they can add a extra tax on the miles you drive as well as on the fuel, as well as on registering a vehicle, as well as on owning a vehicle, as well as on buying a vehicle, as well as… Damn we are being taxed like a bunch of Europeans.
I see Roger got the copy of the Rosetta Stone ‘Best Hits’ collection I sent him.
I do hope Roger doesn’t say ‘Dunleary’ instead of Doon Lair-ah as the nice Ms Doyle does on the news.
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