Test of Text-to-Speech (TTS) Abbreviations in Waze Clients

[LittlestLou]

Regarding the infamous Coe Roads, I am almost positive that up until a couple of months ago, everything was pronounced correctly. Perhaps I am going a little nutty though. Either way, thanks for the tip on CR, etc.

[LittlestLou]

So, just heard "Bus" (for Business) pronounced Bus...again, this is new for me, as of a month or two ago. I did clear out my cache at the recommendation of others but that never made a difference. Sorry if this is a repeat. I haven't been on the forums as much lately.

[LittlestLou]

Wow, I guess I used a more out-dated version of Waze longer than I realized. I can confirm it worked before, as did CONST ZN and Co Rd but I only recently noticed otherwise. Again, must be using an older release. I am so behind the times.

[mapcat]

Thanks for putting together the list. Very thorough. I look forward to seeing the results as they come in.

[mapcat]

Per The Chicago Manual of Style, the correct abbreviation for Doctor is "Dr." and Saint is "St." (just as Ph.D. and NOT PhD is the correct abbreviation for that which I seek)

I must have left my Chicago Manual of Style in my other office, so I can't check, but what does it recommend for Drive or Street?

[mapcat]

Label: Geo Wash Pkwy
TTS: George Washington Parkway.

Label: Geo. Wash. Pkwy = TTS: George Washington Pkwy

Rationale: "Wash" is not wholly uncommon word in street names.

In cases such as this it makes much more sense to change the street name, IMO. If we acknowledge that some street names can be shortened, and not just commonly abbreviated prefixes/suffixes/directionals, we'd only over-complicate things, with little upside.

[mapcat]

Est is east in Quebec. It's grating to hear Waze say "estate" all the time.

Isn't that because it's French? (i.e. Nord, Sud, Est, Ouest = North, South, East, West)

Wouldn't it just be easier to use N, S, E, W as the cardinal (compass) directions in Waze? And then you can change the language in the app to either Engilsh (and get North, South, East, West) or French (and get Nord, Sud, Est, Ouest) - I think, I'm not about to change my Waze to French as I may never get it back to English.

No, he's saying that Waze pronounces roads like "Autoroute 20 Est" as "Autoroute Twenty Estate" instead of the preferred "Autoroute Vingt Est".

Unfortunately, the North America server (USA+Canada) only has English TTS at the moment, and until all the Anglo pronunciations are correct, I doubt they'll be able to work on the other languages.

[mapcat]

Someone pointed out that TTS has no idea what to do with "Trfwy", an abbreviation used for "Trafficway" in the Kansas City area. Trfwy is used on BGS, so even though it's geographically limited, it's still worth adding to the list.

[mapcat]

I just discovered how TTS treats one of the exits and streets here. On printed maps, the street is written as UTSA Blvd. The Waze map has it as Utsa Blvd. It is supposed to be pronounced as 'you tea ess aaa' sounding out each letter. TTS tries to say the name as a word - "ootsa Blvd". The exit signs for this street have it as 'UTSA Blvd / University of Texas at San Antonio', and TTS announces "ootsa Blvd / University of Texas at San Antonio". I see in this thread that to be pronounced as letters, they should be written as lower case surrounded by single quotes. That would probably look awkward -- 'u' 't' 's' 'a' -- and unmanageable if you have to write it very many times. How should this be handled to get the right announcement?

I don't think it's saying you're supposed to use lower case in quotes, just that that style will produce the desired result. It may prove valuable if Waze provides us with a TTS override field at a later date. But for now I don't think there's a way to get it to work; even leaving spaces in between the letters might get you a "south" where you don't want it.

On a related note, one of my job sites has the acronym OSUM, and that's how I entered it in my favorites list. At some point recently, Waze began announcing "Arriving at Awesome" as soon as I pull into the parking lot. Which is awesome.

[mapcat]

Is it essential to have TTS say "Bureau of Indian Affairs Thirteen" for that road? What's wrong with calling it "be eye ay thirteen"? Or would TTS call that "by-ah thirteen" instead?