[Tfug] OT: A "musing"

[Rich]

On Apr 4, 2007, at 12:14 pm, Bexley Hall wrote:

>
> --- Rich <r-lists at studiosprocket.com> wrote:
>
> So, your rule seems to *always* add "AND".
> [...]
> six hundred and twenty three thousand, four hundred
> and fifty one?
Yes, this one. But hyphenated :-)

>> With millions and upwards, "1234567" would be "one
>> million, two
>> hundred and thirty-four thousand, five hundred and
>> sixty-seven".
>
> Ah, so you *do* seem to use AND in each "triad"...
Yup! That's the British for you...

> I was trying to avoid all the "special cases".
> E.g., street addresses: "in the ten hundred block..."
I know, but y'know... an OT thread's an OT thread :-)

>> The British still
>> can't make up their
>> minds, and most haven't heard of a "milliard"...
>
> Yes, working with associates in Manchester found
> "big numbers" ambiguous.
If you're in engineering it's not such a problem, because powers of  
ten are understood.
>   (along with the spelling of Al, "realize", etc.  :> )
My wife tells me I say it wrong, so I recite random elements  
stressing the "EE-UM" endings.  (I cleverly stop before I get to  
Molybdenum...) http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=aluminium  
"Less classical". Yup.

>> [...] Germanic  languages [...]
> I.e. no "AND"s...
Not even any spaces! :-)

> To be fair, I am dealing with the context of
> synthetic speech -- which typically suffers
> from intelligibility, regardless.
Thought so :-)  Glad to help.
>   When dealing
> with a "formless speaker" (i.e. no visual cues to
> pick up) *and* when "asking for it to be repeated"
> isn't as easy as just wrinkling your brow (as in
> a face-to-face conversation), coming up with a
> scheme that allows the user to establish a
> "cadence template" in his mind and just "fit"
> the speech into that pattern does a lot in terms of
> increasing the first pass unaided recognition rate.
It should be easy for native US English speakers, or else it'll be  
completely unusable for people with a different first language. Often  
these things emulate a Midwestern speaker, when all non-US people  
hear on films and TV are Hollywood and the South...

A pause in speech is like whitespace in print, so in fact, the rhythm  
of:
  "one hundred twenty three"
could be brought closer to that of
  "one hundred and twenty three"
without losing anyone. After all, that "and" is more of a grunt than  
Sesame Street style "A. N. D.  Aa-Nn-Dd  Aanndd  AND!". Just like the  
"'N'" in "Rock 'N' Roll".

cheers,
R.