OT: What words or phrases annoy you?

[NY]

Our experience with setting timers and reminders on Alexa is that she gets the name of the time spot on but often has trouble understanding the time, no matter whether we specify it as "seven o'clock" (defaulting to the next one, whether it's AM or PM), "seven PM" or "nineteen hundred hours". I'm not sure how the voice recognition that it can recognise fairly complicated product names when adding things to the shopping list, but has trouble understanding times when there are only twelve hour-words to recognise (24 if you include 24-hour) plus "AM", "PM", "in the morning" and "in the evening".

Also, Alexa seems to decide every so often to go into her "by the way, your voice isn't familiar to me - what's your name" routine when given a command, which usually gets an unprintable response from whichever of us is in earshot. Surprisingly she hasn't been programmed to come back with a smart-arse response when told to "f**k off". ;-)

[Snit]

On Jun 19, 2021 at 12:56:32 PM MST, ""NY"" wrote <sali5j$j6s$ [e-mail]:

We do not use it much for that but will ask "her" to "Set a timer for 15 minutes" and she will tell us our 5, or 50 minute timer is set. Or even ones less related. She tends to do that less with me -- but has trouble with other voices (and has done it with me a couple times).

Ours has. :)

[rbowman]

Well before that. 'Mitgift' is 'dowry' and the roots of 'gift' are as a bride price. Somehow it morphed to venom. Might have had something to do with the bride.

[Snit]

On Jun 19, 2021 at 12:00:07 PM MST, ""Rod Speed"" wrote [e-mail]>:

Never tried that. 

It would be better to just ask "Do you want more info on timers?" Then let me say "no". I just want to know when my cookies are done, not have a chat with a bot.

Makes sense... I like tech but tend not to collect tons of it. Might if I were wealthier. 

Same here. Or sometimes for things like "How many tablespoons are in a cup" (OK, I know that one already but you get the idea).

Could be mine is a low end older one and its mic is not as good?

[Snit]

On Jun 19, 2021 at 3:51:09 PM MST, ""Rod Speed"" wrote [e-mail]>: ...

I will go try.

Told me the date and then said I could ask it about what happened on this date. But it was brief so that is OK. Tried it and it told me about Juneteenth. 

That is fine... but there are times she has gone on and on. This time she just said "Ten minutes, starting now". Then my wife asked what I was doing and I told her about the test (I was recording). I turned off the recording. About

30 seconds later Alexa said she did not know how to help me with that. I do think I have it set to keep listening so you do not have to say Alexa each time... so not a horrid mistake. 

We have had it just go on for 30 seconds to a minute with other stuff.

Then we tell it to shut up, and it says we started the conversation so we should shut up. But that second part is from me, so I cannot complain. :)

But set up the reply to "Shut up" because we were telling the darn thing that so often.  ...

Makes sense. 

It is good. Even with math -- though I tend to like to challenge myself to do it in my head (and usually the math I need when around it is pretty darn simple!)

Ours is adequately loud for our needs... but it just is needed in the kitchen. 

If you have to use your hands that sorta defeats the purpose.

I do occasionally use it for music, though just the free channels. Helpful to be able to turn volume up and down without hands as people come in and out of the kitchen to help or get other food or whatever. 

[Commander Kinsey]

It should say "no thanks you're old and ugly".

I miss simple things. I use my phone for a timer, and have to press a lot more buttons that I should just to make it make a noise in half an hour.

[Commander Kinsey]

It should never ask you. You're busy doing something and just want the f****ng timer set. If you wanted to know about timers you should have to ask.

[Commander Kinsey]

Even my parrot can say "goodnight pal" only when I'm off to bed. Another one says "good morning" only when I first get up.

[Commander Kinsey]

Why is "go get you another milk" confusing everyone? If anything is missing it's "I'll" at the start. The complete sentence for me would be "I'll go get you another milk". A milk is a perfectly valid thing to talk about. Do you argue at McDonalds that "do you want fries with that" makes no sense and they must specify what container they're in?

[Commander Kinsey]

"Go get you" means the teacher is fetching it for the child. "go get" is a command, the teacher is telling the child to get another one.

[Commander Kinsey]

That would mean you want to inspect them to see if they're good enough, or choose from a variety, like "can I see the wine list".

[Commander Kinsey]

Same here on both counts. In fact in 45 years I've only been corrected once from can to may. That was my teacher when I was 10. I asked something simple: "can I go to the toilet". I got a lecture that of course I could go, but I might get into trouble for not having permission, and I must ask if I may go first. I got a detention when I said "if you don't hurry up with an answer I'll go right here".

[Commander Kinsey]

Americans don't like more words. For example someone weights 140 pounds instead of 10 stone. They actually prefer larger numbers to more words, despite only doing math instead of maths. When one sayd a large number in pounds, I respond with something like "is it about 546252134 inches to the nearest shop?"

[Commander Kinsey]

Because 2 weeks happens more often.

Ok, why have a special word for 12 months? There's no special word for 24 months.

[Snit]

On Jun 20, 2021 at 9:01:02 AM MST, ""Commander Kinsey"" wrote [e-mail]:

I would not mind that, but I also can see where it might want to let you know you can do more, and with it growing features you are not going to know unless it does (or you are quite geeky).

[Commander Kinsey]

Cargo goes on ships and shipments go in cars.

[Commander Kinsey]

Because those folk can work out what to do?

[Commander Kinsey]

Agreed.

No more annoying than the G being pronounced as not silent.

Never heard something so ridiculous. But I do detest "fifteen hundred hours". There are not one thousand five hundred hours in the day.

What's wrong with that? Most people don't know the make, since there weren't (many) other (famous) models made by them. Neither of those words sound any more likely to be a make.

I have no problem with that. Why do you need the plural indicated in both words?

That is amusing. "Rocket science" though is a stupid phrase, since there's not much to it, just equal and opposite reactions really.

I find the lower classes/races do that.

[Commander Kinsey]

Then stop reading them.

[Commander Kinsey]

Saleable instead of sellable.