Monday, January 16, 2017

Siri (qui n'aiment pas des sacres) & SIRI

French Canadian Siri found this expression "indecent."
I decided that if my goal is to at least visit Montreal, if not move there for 4 - 8 years, I should switch Siri's language from Frenchy-French to French Canadian.

I tested to make sure the transition was complete et voila - Siri was highly offended when I said "boîte de baptemes" (box of baptisms) to her, and replied:

je vous prie de faire preuve d'un peu plus de décence

Which means: "I ask you to show a little more decency."

Formidable! French Canadian Siri knows the "sacres."

I mentioned a couple of months ago that Justin Trudeau (in 2006) used that expression, "box of baptisms."

I asked Siri what a "sacres" was and she said "If your mother could hear you!"

Then I said "osti batarde" (host bastard) and she "je vais debrancher votre micro... je prefere etre sourde que d'entendre ça!"

Which means "I will unplug your microphone... I prefer to be deaf to listening to this."


Ça ma fait rire!

Saying "osti du tabernak du chalice" got the response "je vais faire comme si je n'avais rien entendu" which means "I will act as if I had not heard anything."

And "chateau de marde" (castle of shit) got this response: "Pourquoi recourir a ce genre de vocabulaire... Le français est une langue tellement riche!" which means "why use that kind of vocabulary? French is such a rich language!"

And speaking of French Canadian Siri, it appears that there is a play being produced in Montreal at Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui called SIRI. The web site says (in French of course I translated it via Google Translate)
Talk to her in a natural voice. Siri understands not only what you say, but also what you want to say, and responds to you. Talk to her like a real person. "Siri is the personal assistant created by Apple and integrated into each of the iPhone. What is the power relationship with this technology? What are the real differences between modern man and machine? Is it enough to have a body to be human? 
In a staging by Maxime Carbonneau, actress Laurence Dauphinais enters into dialogue with Siri. For if the application is at our service and knows all of us, we do not learn anything from it. Little by little, by a methodical question-and-answer session, the actress pushes the limits of the machine so that it betrays itself, until their two identities merge and reveal the mystery that connects them.

In the video snippet on the web page, their Siri uses a woman's voice so I assume that is also the case in the show, but the French translation originally said "Talk to him in a natural voice... Talk to him like a real person."

And the reason for that is that in French, "talk to him in a natural voice" is "Parlez-lui d’une voix naturelle."

"Parlez-lui "is "talk to  with the pronoun "lui" - but lui could be male or female so the translator assumed male. I made the adjustment manually. But I find it odd that the French make such a big freaking deal about genderizing everything - like putting an extra e on the end of things like your country designation (if you're a guy you're an Americain for example but if you're a woman you're an Americaine) and they genderize things randomly - for instance if you are a woman you are la femme, but if you are a female teacher you are le professeur. Professor is male. And your body parts have different genders - your arm is masculine (le bras) but your leg is feminine (la jambe). OMD!

So with all that genderizing you'd think they'd do it in a situation where it would really come in handy. But no.

Oh well, I will try to catch a show when I visit Montreal, probably in the summer.