DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Airline gate agents for international flights tend to have command of multiple languages. I am impressed by the way they can reel off their announcements about schedules and procedures in two (or more) languages — but then I have to laugh when they stumble over passenger names, so that Carmichael comes out Carmickley, and someone else is called Souptits. What kind of a name is “Soup-tits”?

A few years back, at an airport that was otherwise forgettable, a female voice came over the PA and announced, “Paging Mr. Hertz, Mr. Di— … ahh, Richard Hertz!” Heh. An old joke lives on. (No, I’m not the one who called in that page.)

In the International terminal of the San Francisco airport, a woman’s voice came on the PA to announce a list of passengers that must check in or risk missing their flight to Shanghai. The voice demonstrated enunciatory prowess found only in professional speakers, and so the roster of passenger names sounded like a Chinese “Ur Sonata:” a collection of random, mouth-twisting syllables recited with 48 KHz, 96-bit digital precision, repeating in groups and phrases, to take on a musical, poetic tone punctuated by occasional glottal explosions. (Bgiff!)