[fromageGB]

My British English may be dated, but it is conTROVersy for me.

[1eyedjack]

Yeah, you say kilOMetre, I say millIMetre

As I recall, it has something to do with the age of the language; as it evolves the stressed syllable migrates to one end from the other.

[barmar]

In the case of British versus American pronunciations, I suspect it's related to how the British aristocracy changed their pronunciation in the centuries since the American Revolution. As I understand it, the American accent is closer to how the language was spoken on both sides of the pond in colonial days. Since then, the British upper class adopted a new accent to distinguish themselves from peasants, and that's what has become the modern "Received Pronunciation".

[Vampyr]

1eyedjack, on 2016-June-22, 09:28, said:

Yeah, you say kilOMetre, I say millIMetre

As I recall, it has something to do with the age of the language; as it evolves the stressed syllable migrates to one end from the other.

In the US the stress has migrated to the first syllable in a number of words: controversy, inquiry and laboratory come to mind. I think that this is the usual pattern but then there is the counter example of garage, and of course the French loan words where the British but not the Americans have moved the stress to the first syllable: cafe, ballet, buffet.

[Vampyr]

barmar, on 2016-June-22, 11:04, said:

In the case of British versus American pronunciations, I suspect it's related to how the British aristocracy changed their pronunciation in the centuries since the American Revolution. As I understand it, the American accent is closer to how the language was spoken on both sides of the pond in colonial days. Since then, the British upper class adopted a new accent to distinguish themselves from peasants, and that's what has become the modern "Received Pronunciation".

Crossed your post which suggests a different source of the differences, but anyway I believe that the the theory holds that accent that is close to the 17-18th century British pronunciation is specifically the accent in Appalachia.

[fromageGB]

Garage itself is interesting. Is it gaRAHJ to rhyme with Farage, GArahj, or is it GAridge? I must confess to using all three.

[Phil]

Ory-ginn - check
Miss-urruh - check

Don't forget the native Hawaiians call it Ha-vie-eh, not Ha-why-ee.

[barmar]

Vampyr, on 2016-June-22, 11:25, said:

Crossed your post which suggests a different source of the differences, but anyway I believe that the the theory holds that accent that is close to the 17-18th century British pronunciation is specifically the accent in Appalachia.

Getting back to the pet peeve theme, this always bugs me when watching TV shows like "Sleepy Hollow" or "Outlander". They have all the colonial American and British characters speeking with a modern British accent.

But I guess it's appropriate dramatic license. In Sleepy Hollow, they want Crane to sound different from the modern Americans; and since he was a British immigrant, a British accent serves that purpose. And if period shows like Outlander used period-appropriate accents, it would sound wrong to modern ears.

It's kind of like when they used to make Cold War movies where the Russians all spoke with English accents.

[barmar]

fromageGB, on 2016-June-22, 15:26, said:

Garage itself is interesting. Is it gaRAHJ to rhyme with Farage, GArahj, or is it GAridge? I must confess to using all three.

In the US I think it's mostly gaRAHJ, I think in England it's GArahj. Haven't heard much GAridge.

[Winstonm]

barmar, on 2016-June-23, 08:12, said:

In the US I think it's mostly gaRAHJ, I think in England it's GArahj. Haven't heard much GAridge.

In the U.S., it is mostly "Where did you put that stuff?"

[mycroft]

Nah, in the U.S., it's pronounced "the mix tool".

[onoway]

How computer people ( who can do what's clearly magic in other ways) don't think things through when they are setting up programs to help with issues. Two examples, to report/fix an Internet problem the local provider suggests faster service by going to its website, and last night I tried to go to the Help and Support area on the computer and actually got a message " Help and Support cannot be accessed. Please go to Help and Support to fix this problem". !!

[fromageGB]

Better than going to the IBM manual (when the help desk says "RTFM, stupid") and finding it says "This page intentionally left blank".

[mycroft]

Don't blame the computer people (too much, they do in fact do some really stupid things) for that one - Somebody Got Told that it's cheaper to only have self-service assistance, and so they fired all the help desk, and *then* asked what it would take to put up a self-service assistance structure. Also, using your customers as beta testers is a tried-and-true method in the industry (mostly because of this kind of thinking), and it works - as long as the cost of your customers' time and goodwill is not counted. But if, of course, all your competitors are using the same cost analysis, they're right - where can you go to get better customer service?

There are a couple of adages that were hoary when I first got into the business, but that doesn't mean they're not true:

• The default state of a project is late.
  
• Estimates: take your best guess, double it, and move to the next time word. Therefore a 2 day project will take 4 weeks.
  
• There's always one more bug.
  
• The Ninety-Ninety Rule: The first 90% of a project takes the first 90% of the time. The last 10% of the project takes the other 90% of the time.

[kenberg]

Computers can be frustrating. A couple of week ago Becky told me the speakers on her PC were no longer working. She had tried without success to find the problem. I hunted it down eventually. I found someplace where you can select whether you have speakers or headphones. It had always been on speakers, or I suppose it had since the speakers had been working, but now it was on headphones. A couple of clicks and the speakers were working. I think it took the better part of an hour to find these clicks. No doubt some geek can tell me why I should have gone to that spot immediately but I didn't know where it was. Since Becky does not use a headphone with this computer, she is sure she never intended to switch from the speaker to the headphones, and she is quite sure she would remember if the computer ever suggested such a change.

When I log in on my computer, a Firefox page comes up. I hit return, that's all it takes, and I have Google up with it's cute little designs and access to gmail. Well, that's the way it usually is. But sometimes when I log on Yahoo comes up. Yes I have learned how to get back to Firefox/Google. But maybe if Yahoo had put more effort into fending off hackers and less effort into sneaking itself into my search engine choices they would have fewer problems.

There are many such things. How do they happen? Who knows? We learn to cope.

Recently I had some issue, I forget now which it was, and I called the indicated number for help. A human answered, and she helped. As we finished I told her what a pleasure it was to talk to a human rather than a robot. I expect it was not the first time she heard this.

[Zelandakh]

I had a classic last week at my work. The synchronisation of my my Windows (logon) password got corrupted meaning I could not use my PC at all so I called the support department. The colleague there needed to check some things and said he would come back to me. That he did - by sending me a lync/skype message asking me to raise a ticket.

To Barry, if you hear mostly GArahj from Brits you know it says something about your social group. In a working class sample I would expect garidg to be by far the most common pronunciation.

[Cyberyeti]

Zelandakh, on 2016-September-28, 04:40, said:

To Barry, if you hear mostly GArahj from Brits you know it says something about your social group. In a working class sample I would expect garidg to be by far the most common pronunciation.

Nah, that's if you hear gaRAHJ I think GArridge is partially class and partially regional, some areas you'll hear something between the two above GArage with a short second a a bit more like GAruj

[cherdano]

Post-mortems in which people find ingenious delicate 6-level cuebids to confidently find a grand, even though the partners disagreed about the range of responder's rebid.

[onoway]

Computer associated ..again.

Tried to order a computer from NewEgg. They don't take phone orders, my computer does weird things; the reason I am looking for another one, obviously, so not about to order online. Phoned to ask them if I could send them a money order, or a certified cheque. No, but in some cases they WILL take orders online, so they can do that. Wonderful! I tried to order a computer. Do you have an account already with us? No, but I can set one up. We can't take an order from you unless you already have an account with us, and I cannot set one up, we are not set up to do that. Pardon me? You have to do that on your computer. My computer isn't working, and since you will have the credit card number , so you don't ship if it wont work, what's the problem.? You don't have an account with us yet, you can get an account from someone else's computer as a guest but we still can't take an order from you like that either. We do take phone orders from people with accounts. But we can't set up an account over the phone. That goes on for a while until I give up. This was mostly with a supervisor, supposedly.

so, try a different company, call Tiger Direct. Do you have an account with us? no? Ok I will set one up for you, no problem. Set up account. Ordered computer, pointed out that the mail address is different from the home address because we don't have mail delivery here. no problem. Standard conversation. Very good. Very happy.

Next day got TWO phone calls telling me to call this number in the US. Phone back, get put into a loop telling me to press the number of the person I wish to speak to.
Since neither of the phone calls TOLD me who to speak to, I try pressing various numbers in hopes of getting a receptionist or someone, all of which result in the loop repeating itself. I wait out the loop for several minutes then hang up.

Another phone call today. They can't get around the idea that the home address might be different from the mailing address. Now I have ordered a lot of stuff online or by phone from various businesses from trees to LED lights and nobody has ever had any problem understanding this. These people want me to call the bank and register a DIFFERENT address with the bank so they can process the order. So people not involved with computers are all capable of comprehending the concept of no home delivery of mail, and that courrier companies do not deliver to post office boxes, but apparently not a company which specializes in computers. Nothing I could say could get through to her that the addresses are different because although both are in a small village, one was where the mail came and one was where I live. And, that I can't change the address for the bank because then I wont get my statements...and the mail would likely be returned as an invalid address, leading to all sorts of issues. More importantly, I see no reason to do so, there has never been a problem with anything else ordered from away.

TWO computer companies, both supposedly involved with online or mail order business as their business model and neither of them are apparently capable of filling an order if a "T" is not crossed at the right angle or the dot on an "i" is off center. Really really frustrating. Now I am back looking for a computer.

[mycroft]

Argh, yes. Tablet recall (Nvidia). There have been a lot of issues with this, not least "oh, we're just going to shut down your tablet, and not tell you *why*" when it's my only map (and only form of communication) in a new city. But finally we get through the dance, and they say they're sending the replacement. I explain that I want it sent to work, because the delivery person will never arrive when someone's home. "you have to call FedEx for that". So I do. I check the notice, and it explicitly says deliver to work.

Wait.

Takes about a week to clear customs.

Wait.

"package has been delivered to [home address]."

Now, I *know* it hasn't been delivered to a person, and I *know* it won't fit in the mailbox. And I *know* it's going to rain soon.

Get emergency permission to work from home that afternoon, show up, there it is on the front porch, only slightly wet, in full view of anyone walking down the street...

If you're in Canada, especially Western Canada, try Memory Express. Not the cheapest, but their service has been lauded by everyone I've talked to (including me).