I don’t know if this has ever been posted on SimHQ before but this had me in stitches!

Oh how true that is,
even training the voice recognition in my Range Rover and after 13 years I still don't use it as it just does not work ya bassa

I identify with this!

Sometimes it takes 2-3 attempts to get “Alexa” to understand, and I’ve (for shame!) found myself having to force an American twang to get phone voicemail menus to understand!

Mike (Scotsman resident in US since 1994)

That's because Alexa is part of Amazon's secret plan to force proper English on the rest of the world. Glad to see it's working.

Me three!
I wanted to use the alternative wake word "computer" (yes, I am a Trekkie) but Alexa just couldn't cope with my pronunciation ...

You can take the man out of Dumbarton but you can't take Dumbarton out of the man ...

I travel in the UK and Ireland quite a bit and can honestly say that I have only had trouble with an accent once. A barkeep near Lossiemouth Scotland I can relate though because some of our local accents have changed little for hundreds of years and are incomprehensible to voice recognition software. I have had my share of trouble with Google voice commands .

The most incomprehensible accent I have ever encountered was a from a guy in our WoW guild. He's from somewhere in Louisiana. He talks like he has his mouth full of sand. Nobody gets half what he says and a lot of the guild are from the southern states

[/quote]
Me three!
I wanted to use the alternative wake word "computer" (yes, I am a Trekkie) but Alexa just couldn't cope with my pronunciation ... [/quote]

Quelle coincidence! I have changed all my Alexa’s (Alexes?) to respond to “computer”, because I think “Alexa” is silly (plus I like Star Trek).

But sometimes I have to resort to “compudda” to get the bloody thing to listen!


Sidebar: I know that my accent has changed (read: been corrupted) since I came here. Back in ‘04 was back in Scotland for my 50th. After a dinner in a restaurant in Arbroath (my home town), my parents, ladyfriend (former lt cdr aviator, USN), and the kids went out ahead to the car park. I followed, chatting to the manager, who said “welcome to Scotland, and where are you from?”

“Just along the High Street” said I..

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿😉🇬🇧

oh and I suppose..🇺🇸

Thanks for sharing this great story!


It's been my experience that accents for most people do indeed change if they move out of their native environment and into a new environment. It just proves further just how much our language is affected by social interactions.

Exactly right. The stereotypical 'Newfie' accent will cease to exist in a generation. A close friend's daughter used to work in Ireland as a teen in hotel and only the locals knew she was not Irish. The current crop of teens have that non-descript "central/mid North American accent" of everyone on US and Canadian TV .

In a few hundred years we will all be beige and all sound the same

Ha, I just did similar to a guy that I met the other day! From Glasgow originally but spent most of his time in South Africa before coming back.


Horrible thought isn't it? I love accents & dialects.

A common denominator of the many nations represented on the TS channel of the Gameserver I frequent is no-one can understand what a chap with a broad Glaswegian accent is saying. His utterings are met with baffled silence often. Luckily he finds it highly amusing.
I can fathom some of his transmissions, being English and having many years ago shared a flat with a chap from Edinburgh whose Mum posted him the cartoon strip pages featuring 'The Broons' and 'Oor Wullie' from the Scots Newspapers, and furrther reading later of 'Trainspotting' which in which the dialogue is written in dialect.

None of those are Glaswegian though (Broons & Oor Wullie are from Dundee, Trainspotting is Edinburgh). Heck, Glaswegian varies between local areas anyway (& depending how much we have been drinking - the more we drink, the faster & broader we get!

Bleedin Weegies everywhere


Here PM is yer first lesson in Talking like an inhabitant of the Glasgow enclave

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_Lk7qivXbw

I can only assume that they weren't Glaswegians at the BBC that passed these for transmission... ? They knew not what they did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N63Rcu2GMBU

Those videos were absolutely hilarious Buff and Alicatt. Quite honestly I think I only understood about 50% of what was being said in both videos.

LOL not seen that Chewin the Fat sketch before
How the hang did that get passed the censors???
"Captin we haf tae change course wur headin fur the jap's eye o the hurricane"

well you would expect that in the chisum channel wouldn't you?

presumably passed by someone with such a cultured/sheltered upbringing that they didn't realise that every 2nd word was a slang sexual innuendo. I mean the boat is even called the Pearl Necklace ...

My wife and I are missing the Glasgow banter, not been back since just before Christmas last year, and normally we are over 3 or 4 times a year, she keeps on about going over and my car needs a MOT by the end of November but while this darn covid lock downs are happening it's not worth our while, especially with our youngest daughter here in Belgium is about to deliver us a new grand kid within a few weeks, if we go over and have to quarantine there and then again when we come back we could miss the whole thing.
I'm not from Glasgow but 20 miles north, Balloch on Loch Lomond.

Was at LL yesterday. Congrats on the forthcoming grandwean .