>> I'm left wondering how the hell the software actually manages
>> this cross-check. Still, it didn't complain.
>
> That's generally an extremely sophisticated algorithm. It likely, for
> example, guesses the nationality of the name and fixes the
> pronunciation. I worked next to the guys doing the voice 411 stuff 20
> years ago, and some of their stories were pretty fun.

The English language is such a baroque mixture of incompatible spelling 
conventions, and nowhere does this show up more than in sirnames. I'm 
surprised this can work at all.

> Simple version: Check for plosives, fricatives, and vowels. Bucket and
> Boquet would be the same. Bucket and smith would not.

So it's merely trying to guess whether the correlation looks plausible, 
rather than a definitive test?

>> Then it asks for my date of birth. Stop and think about this for a
>> moment:
>
> Again, it's not that hard. There's only a dozen or so ways to say it.

Well, I might say "March twenty eighth" or "the twenty eighth of March" 
or "the twenty eighth day in March" or several more wordy variations 
than that...

>> *Finally* I get through to some woman in India. (Why is it always
>> India? Why
>> to companies not comprehend that if you're employing somebody FOR THE
>> EXPRESSED PURPOSE OF TALKING TO PEOPLE ALL DAY then being able to speak
>> their languages is KIND OF CRITICAL?)
>
> That's why it's India and not China. India was occupied by the british
> long enough that many learn English pretty well.

Heh. And I thought it was because China is communist...

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