To-may-to, To-mah-to... II

A recent conference call, where people with American, Asian, and Australian accents attempted to make themselves understood, reminded me of an experience I had in Australia. After priding myself on understanding all the different accents of English, I was brought down to Earth by a simple Australian system called CityLink.

Central Melbourne doesn’t have any toll plazas. Instead, the city has a rather Singaporean solution. They record the license plates of all vehicles going into and out of the city. You then call into a hotline and pay your toll via credit card, after you’ve finished your driving for the day.

So after our first trip on the tollway, I called the hotline and selected the route I had taken. Everything was going just fine - until I had to supply the license plate number. The system preferred you to say the tag number instead of typing it in.

CityLink: Please say the license tag number.
Me: U, M, H, 1, 2, 6.
CityLink: You said, “U, N, J, 1, 2, 6.” Is this correct?
Me: No.

CityLink: Please say the license tag number. You can also use words starting with the letters.
Me (trying my best Australian accent): U, Mary, H, 1, 2, 6.
CityLink: You said, “U, A, E, 1, 2, 6.” Is this correct?
Me: No.

CityLink: Please say the license tag number.
Me (channeling Crocodile Dundee): U, Mum, ai-tch, 1, 2, 6.
CityLink: You said, “U, M, E, 1, 2, 6.” Is this correct?
Me: No!!

And on and on it went. Eventually, I gave up shouting at the system “in Australian” and resigned myself to pressing 0 to speak to humans, who promptly processed my toll. It occurred to me later that my “h” might have sounded very similar to the way Australians say “each.” It serves me right for trying to use a voice-automated system in Australia! I can only imagine what would happen if I tried this on a Singapore voice-automated system, but actually they don’t use those here at all. Now I think I know why.