Do you "GARBLE" your words when speaking.....???

[Sourdough]

Do you or have you noticed problems understanding a very high percentage of people...???

 

[zoomzoom]

Only when alcohol is involved.

 

[Mountain trapper]

Yes. The worst speakers I've ever been around were oil field workers from Texas. It sounded to me like they went out of their way to slur their words and to sound even more ignorant than they actually were.

 

[Sourdough]

Only when alcohol is involved.

That might be a "Small" part of it. I feel it is much bigger than that. Words are all run together. There is no end of a word, it gets "MASHED" into the next word.

 

[Alaskajohn]

Modern communication is much like this.

 

[elkhound]

stay off the phone with anyone from the south....lol...or under age of 45....people talk so fast and south...well they got that southern slang thing going on !

 

[Haertig]

This is generally a sign that the person complaining that others are garbling their words is instead losing their hearing and needs hearing aids. This is a common complaint from the elderly.

But there are some people who do indeed garble their words.

 

[zoomzoom]

I'd say there's several components.
Obviously, linguistic capabilities of the person speaking, especially enunciation.
Regional dialects and accents.
Hearing capabilities of the person listening. This can be hearing difficulties, comprehension of the aforementioned about the speakers linguistics, dialect, accent.

I'm old now and do have hearing issues as it relates to speech. I can't hear anyone if the background noise is too high. I also have problems understanding people with foreign accents. Take out those to components, and I can understand most people, be they from the north, south, east or west, regardless of how fast or slow they talk.

 

[Pearl]

People DO NOT enunciate properly anymore!! I have noticed this for years! I have OUTSTANDING hearing!! High squeaky voices, quiet unsure voices, speaking too quickly!! It's one of my pet peeves!! People can't introduce themselves properly anymore either and have fishy handshakes!! It's like people don't have pride in themselves or who they are anymore!!

 

[Sourdough]

Here is a question: If you call AMAZON.Com to speak with customer service. Do you typically have a greater than average problem understanding the AMAZON employee.

I noticed after my most recent problem with amazon, I received a 6 question e-mail asking about my experience. The middle question inquired "If I could understand the Amazon employee".

Must be I am not the only person with difficulty understanding customer service employees.

 

[Supervisor42]

Here is a question: If you call AMAZON.Com to speak with customer service. Do you typically have a greater than average problem understanding the AMAZON employee.

I noticed after my most recent problem with amazon, I received a 6 question e-mail asking about my experience. The middle question inquired "If I could understand the Amazon employee".

Must be I am not the only person with difficulty understanding customer service employees.

Naa, you just need to brush up on your ability to understand a thick Hindu accent.
Of course, I can't throw stones, because I speak with an Alabama southern dialect.

 

[Jen]

Do you or have you noticed problems understanding a very high percentage of people...???

Well, when I moved from San Antonio to West Texas I couldn't understand anything they said for a while.

And when I lived in Connecticut, if a local called me on the phone, I couldn't understand what they were saying.

Now, even in Oklahoma where there is a decided accent.... I can pretty much understand.

I am a teacher so I speak clearly with just a few words that show I'm from the South. There are a couple of words here and there that might indicate I'm from, oh... Hawaii, or Italy and some Spanglish is there.... some things are worth keeping for lack of a better word. But I am easy to understand when I speak.

 

[Cabin Fever]

Hearing aids might help.

 

[Mountain trapper]

I spent a lot of years working overseas in foreign companies. I usually had an interpreter follow me around everywhere I went. I worked for a British oil company for a few years. I could understand the Britts just fine, but their was a Scott manager that I couldn't understand at all. I'd have to get one of the Britts to translate for me. It used to really upset that guy.

 

[Jen]

Yes. The worst speakers I've ever been around were oil field workers from Texas. It sounded to me like they went out of their way to slur their words and to sound even more ignorant than they actually were.

I dated a guy once who was educated and completely fluent in both Spanish and English. When speaking English he had a little bit of an accent. Nice.

He worked with the chemical makeup of the mud that flowed in Texas oil wells. Once he was on the phone with some Texas dude at an oil well........and my Ricardo Montalban man.........suddenly spoke Oil Field Worker..........perfect accent. If I didn't know him I would have thought that was the way he talked.

Jaw dropping.

He lives in South America now and has adopted an accent so that they don't know he's from the USA. They think he's from Mexico City.

 

[teeceetx]

Rudiya min? Splain to meez.

 

[Hardcalibres]

This is a problem I have encountered before......in others I have worked with.

It seems to happen when accents (local or international) are involved......and mostly with older people (trying to understand through/past the accent).

There are three parts to the problem:

1. Hearing impairment
2. Mental acuity - the ability to decode sounds into language
3. Attitude - patience and determination to understand others.......or just giving up and blaming them for not being clear enough?

Older people have problems with all three and the combination can make hearing, then decoding speech, then decoding grammar and actually being bothered to try to understand, more difficult for older people.

In the last year, I had to do English to English translations for an older guy who could not understand people speaking English with a French accent in Africa.

I could understand them just fine.......but he couldn't understand a word they were saying.

He was 74.