Tuesday 9 November 2021

Grace, Chris, Katy and Andy

Our SatNav is called Grace ['tis Grace that brought us safe this far, and Grace will lead us home] and she is mostly very good. However, she does have an odd turn of pronunciation sometimes. There are 3 characters who pop up regularly when she is guiding us.

Chris. This often appears when a placename includes the word Christ. So that big place near Ferndown in Dorset was Chris Tchurch

Katy She appears whenever there is a Market in the placename, and nearby roadsigns abbreviate it to Mkt. In Norfolk there is Downham M Katy, and Burnham M Katy. In Leicestershire there is M Katy Harborough

And recently we've heard another chap mentioned, Andy. He is on the new Northern Distributor Road round Norwich, where Grace told us to turn off for Norwich N Andy. [I had to check the sign, and realised it was Norwich, North and East]

Does your SatNav have a name? and is it prone to mispronouncing place names?

23 comments:

  1. Too funny! My daughter is my SatNav as she'll read out the directions to me.

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    1. She is more reliable, I expect -especially when you encounter temporary signs saying "Diversion ahead"

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  2. That's pretty funny but bizarre it doesn't say Christ!

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  3. No mine doesn't have a name and she's quite good at pronunciations, even most of the Welsh ones when we lived there funnily enough. But Alan's ... well that is a different story ... no name once again it's built into the car so it's not a separate entity, but she gives the full numerical number for each road and frequently tells us to turn right on the motorway ... scary stuff. Her pronunciations have us copying her all the time, if there's a way to get it wrong she will.

    I love that yours actually gives places new actual names though, you'll be getting into the habit of saying let's go to 'Katy' before you know it.

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    1. I was in someone else's car and couldn't believe the complicated way the satnav delivered road numbers

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  4. I love this post! Our satnav doesn't have a name but she is female and pronounces Stourbridge as Stir Bridge and Droitwich as Dro It Which. She makes me giggle every time :)

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    1. Now I want to go to Dro It Which and see what Grace calls it!!

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  5. Our sat nav is named 'Glad', her full name is Gwladys, for the Gwladys Street end of Goodison Park, we're Everton supporters!
    She's built into the car, and is usually very good, but struggles with Welsh pronunciation a bit, Penrhyndeudraeth has her completely flummoxed!
    She's a lot more softly spoken than one of our previous satnavs (we always buy cars with them built in), who always seemed to be shouting at us, especially when she said 'A' as in 'A55, A41' etc. It was a really hard, coarse, Cockney sounding 'A' and sounded as though she was a chain smoker, it was horrible!
    I still read maps though, I'm usually a better navigator than 'Glad' too! X

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    1. I'd struggle with Penrhyn...too!The thought of a chain smoking voice amuses me, I'm glad Glad is more softly spoken. Bossiness seems a common trait among these voices

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  6. Our Satnav always sounds a bit on the stern side to me. It is like she is telling you off if you go a different way to her instructions.

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  7. My satnav says “Swaaaffum”, which, as you know, is the correction pronunciation of “Swaffham”.

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    1. I didn't realise you could get ones with a Norfolk accent. How does yours get on with Stiffkey, Wymondham and Happisburgh?

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  8. We used to have something like that and it seemed to favour the US when we tried to input destinations. We would talk back to the dreadful woman who would keep telling us to make a legal U-turn, but when we finally got fed up it was because she told us to turn left into the St. Lawrence River. I donated it to a Charity Shop. I hope any subsequent owner didn't end up driving off a cliff!

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    1. Are you sure a CS was the best place for it?!

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    2. I would hope that any user of these devices would take note of where they are going and not follow blindly! We are too dependent on electronics these days and need to do regular reality checks.

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  9. My niece had one in her car that sounded like John Cleese in Fawlty Towers. He got very cross and slightly hysterical when you went the wrong way. Still makes me laugh when I think about it

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    1. I'm not sure I could trust him giving me directions

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  10. No Satnav but our subway (underground) system has an automatic announcer with a feminine "voice". We have a station called Christy - but we swear she says CRISPY! When it first started we all used to look at each other and laugh - now it's newbies who look very confused when they first hear her. It's the only station that seems to have this issue so not quite sure why. :-)
    Margie from Toronto

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    1. The London Underground has various announcers, including actor Tim Bentinck. He plays David Archer in the radio series. I expect his wife Ruth (Felicity Finch) to interrupt with her "oh nooo!" catchphrase

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  11. Our very English sounding SatNav has much fun with French street names. Her pronunciation is worse than mine!!

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    1. We had a hire car in Sicily once, and were able to programme the SatNav to speak English - but it did try and direct us down a flight of steps - we did not follow. Perhaps this was what happened in The Italian Job?

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