Y'all Unnerstan'?

24 November 2003


Voice Recognition Software Can't Handle Southern Drawl

It appears that the software engineer who wrote the voice recognition program for the Police Department of Shreveport, Louisiana, was some kinda damnyankee. The local version of the English language, not dissimilar from that of William Faulkner, James Baldwin and Flannery O'Connor, cannot be parsed by the software. Of course, those fine authors gained fame for writing, not speaking.

The problem is so pronounced (pardon the participle) that the department has gone back to a more primitive technology for its non-emergency calls, that of the touch-tone menu. Captain John Dunn, the fellow in charge of the department's communications, said that the computer didn't understand what was being said, and calls were transferred to the wrong place. "In Louisiana, we have a problem with Southern drawl and what I call lazy mouth. Because of that, the system often doesn't recognize what [callers] say," he said. Interim Chief Mike Campbell was quoted by the Associated Press as saying , "I can count on one hand when I have been transferred to where I've wanted to go, and I know the system."

The ideal solution, of course, would be to hire an operator or three and let them deal with the calls -- one might call it the human solution. Unfortunately, that might require the expenditure of money for things like wages, healthcare, and the like. Such things could be done, but it is cheaper these days to hire English-speakers from the Subcontinent to do the phone work. One doubts that many of them could handle a good bayou accent.

Of course, the problem lies in the fact that English is such a diverse and varied tool for communication. There are some accents that are unlovely and unabidable, but they tend to vary from person to person. And it takes only a brief exposure for one person to be able to follow another's speech -- even if a Texan and a Glaswegian are involved in the chat. Shreveport's Police Department was undoubtedly inconvenienced by this recent situation, as were the citizens of that parish, but it's a fine example of human's triumphing over machines through sheer cussedness. Three cheers for "y'all."

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