Have you ever had a miscommunication? In other words, do you live in the world? Of course, we all have. I have voice to text messaging and I really like it. Most of the time it gets my messages right, though sometimes I have to display prior knowledge to discern what people mean. The program does insert question marks when it’s confused. But most of the time, it doesn’t think it’s confused at all. Yet it can be as creative as—well, a writer!
From an editor:
Hi Chandler (Tamela) this is (Not the editor’s name. And it got the author’s name wrong, too. So, it got all three names wrong. Thankfully, I knew everyone involved. Well, except Chandler!)
From Momma:
I know I where (worry) you to death. If you get a chance today would you look up and see when’s that movie phone (on). Bruce don’t try in Palmdale. (Ummm, I don’t remember the name of it now, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t that.)
Daddy:
I have some more test yesterday and I’m not happy but happy was those-were(?) the day before so they don’t keep some more test and I’ll let you know what’s going on. (I don’t remember what this was all about but believe me, Daddy never speaks incoherently.) I love you get the.
Daddy:
I’m calling to tell you that your mother is going to play (stay) in the hospital at least one more day.
Doctor’s office:
This is Emily Madison calling for to Mela… (Family Medicine calling for Tamela)
Editor:
Hi Pamela this is (editor’s first name) loaner. I just wanted to follow up with you about (author). Listen I wondered if she wants to chat with me before she starts riding.
Your turn:
Do you find it’s easy to get messages garbled thanks to technology?
Do you have voice to text messaging? Do you have any amusing messages you’d like to share?
Time to Play!
I just received a message this morning from my mother:
Yea! Uncle R and Aunt C said they won’t make out.
I’m thinking I wouldn’t want to see that anyway! (She meant to say “make it” to a party we are having.)
That’s too funny, April! 🙂
I don’t need technology to get my message garbled. I do that well enough alone. Example: do you want dinner for pizza? Or should we zoo to the go on Saturday?
Amazingly enough, I do this in speech, text, phone, but not my writing.
I don’t use voice to text messaging. My husband uses it though.
Ummm, yep. I’ve had my phone change texts messages (via auto-correct) but I can’t share them with polite company! It was just a good thing I was texting a friend and we laughed about it.
Hi, Tamela! Thanks for the laughs. I don’t use voice to text messaging, and all the appropriate auto correct stories elude me at the moment.
BUT
I found this and wanted to share:
“That moment when you spell a word so wrong that even auto correct is like, “I’ve got nothing man.'” 🙂
Severe pain (and no pain meds) can garble my words, though my sentence structure is correct, and Barbara has to figure out what I am saying from the context.
She did, though, become slightly nonplussed when I told her I had just circumcised Abraham Lincoln. (What I had meant was that I had just opened a new bag of dog treats.)
Friends asked if we’d like to take a ride with them to see their brother-in law’s custom built octagonal house someday. We said, “fine.”
After returning from church and long lunch, and finding a terse note on our door (“We were here–where were you”), we realized that our someday was their Sunday.
I know this, when typing on my cell, without reading glasses, while shuffling along the house from one task to another, it’s wise to remember that the ‘u’ and ‘i’ on the keyboard are side-by-side when responding to a prayer request with the following petition, “May God open and sh-t doors…” 🙁 Oh my, yes, I did. Grateful my reputation as one who does not use potty language saved me.
The very best transcription error I ever saw related to a short-term research program we called Exploratory Express. The program admin came to my office with tears of laughter in her eyes to lead me down to see the response from one of the project reviewers. His reply to her voicemail about sending his proposal reviews for the next meeting of the Exploratory Express committee was “Chicken breast proposals???”
Ummm, Parmesan cheese, anyone?
These are all too funny! And yes, I’ve done and been on the receiving end of scrambled and misinterpreted text and voice messages. I’ve felt that fear and embarrassment when I realized my auto-correct misspelled a word or two or three. Especially if I sent a text to the wrong person… and that was human error. Blush! Gasp!
I bought my first Google phone last Christmas. Our 33 years old son had to program the phone for me. He also had to show me how to use it. Since I had never “texted”, I have been learning to slow down when I type on the phone. Thank goodness I check my message before hitting send. haha! And, thank goodness my family has a lot of patience with me and the phone.
I received the following voicemail from someone I was interviewing for an article:
“Jennifer this is very much a coffee returning your call uh to hear from your daughter love you father and mother very much hope you’re having a good day bye-bye…”
It should have been:
“Jennifer this is Amos [last name] returning your call. Good to hear from Jerry’s daughter. I love your father and mother very much hope you’re having a good day bye-bye…”
Reading that, I thought the message was from your parents! 🙂
Haha!! I know, right?? He’s a sweet 90-year-old giant of the faith who worked in ministry with my parents for years. I get to write about how he prayed for his brother for over 40 years before he finally came to faith in Jesus.
But his older voice coupled with thick southern accent sure make for hilarious voicemail transcription! LOL
All of your comments are so funny! Keep them coming!
I gave up on my voice-to-text feature because it frequently interprets my southern accent in a way that turns innocent words into words I don’t allow in my vocab! It’s faster to type than speak and then have to correct almost the whole text.
I love voice to text because it always cracks me up. My funniest one was a reminder for a doctor appointment: “Hi, this is Cathy from Dr. Laying Around’s office…”
I’ve also had someone use swear words on my voice mail (the nerve of that person!), and it was transcribed just like we used to see it in comic books: !%@#$.
When my son David was applying for jobs right out of college, he got a rejection letter than started “Dear Charles….” That brought some levity into the day!
My wife was very tired when she went in to work this morning, so at lunch I emailed her to ask if coffee helpe.
The reply I got back through her voice-converter was supposed to be ‘coffee helps some’.
It came through, given her Southern accent, as “Coffee helps, son.”
Sounded like she was channeling ale Earnhardt Jr. Loved it.
Dale, not ale, though I could really use a beer.
Discussing a repotted plant, I’ve had a friend tell me she put “about 4 inched of Rick (inches of rock) in the bottom of a ceramic pot.” Poor Rick…
The “wrong person” message can be fun too.
On a recent Sunday morning, I woke up first and texted a member of my family that I was about to get a shower (we have cistern water with a water pump and heater that can’t handle two showers at a time). Turns out, I sent it to my mom’s best friend…
At least she knew that I’d be showing up to church clean!