Pre s. I always thought Chuck Berry - he was quite a wordsmith - coined that word, but it’s in the OED, going back well over two hundred years.
I periodically check a few automated phone lines for credit card or other kinds of balances. They’ve always been natural-sounding.
Lately, a couple are using that annoying robot-ish voice.
I don’t know enough about this kind of tech to have an informed opinion as to whether it’s more efficient or cheaper, but I suspect someone thinks it sounds more high tech, modern.
Look at the design of US coins for another example of the perils
of modernization.
Another Botheration
- Slava
- Great Grand Panjandrum
- Posts: 8491
- Joined: Thu Sep 28, 2006 9:31 am
- Location: Finger Lakes, NY
Re: Another Botheration
FWIW: Etymonline has botheration dated to 1788. Bother goes back to an Anglo-Irish pother, which isn't the same as our current pother, which comes from somewhere.
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.
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