Google voice gives great oral

Google Voice is something I can't live without -- it's one of the few significant advantages an Android phone has over an iPhone. Thanks to its ability to transcribe my every phone message, I no longer even listen to half of my messages, since many are doctors' offices confirming appointments or other folks just leaving me a phone number to call back. Numbers are very easy for Google Voice to transcribe correctly.

Not so for everything else, especially the type of stop and go banter that fills most phone messages. Listening to my messages while following the Google algorithm's best guess at their content makes me realize how few complete sentences are spoken by callers.

Still, it's hard to believe you couldn't gin up an algorithm that could do better than Google Voice does on many of my calls. Of course, that would mean I'd lose Google Voice's unintentional comedy. Witness this surprisingly provocative message from the post office (my emphasis):

Voicemail from: Unknown Caller at 8:47 AM

Yes, Hi Good Morning. This is calling from the post office, the mailman will be. Yeah, Hello Baby. Ohh. Peggy shop on another 20 minutes. Thank you.

Or take this helpful update from my father, who is apparently on ecstasy:

I'm still kind of into the weather that has just come back this evening and and we might. She will want to get some of the like. Here at something like that. So, but I'm pretty well over the sky. I don't know. Spoke to sort of city. There's just a little bit tired fun it so I don't do anything right. Yeah. we should check in to the prices of storm door Of, snirtstorm security guards at Home Depot.

I had never even heard of the word "snirtstorm", which apparently is the combination of snow and a dirt storm, and seems to afflict the northern Midwest. (In fact, is such an unusual word that it is a great ingredient for Googlewhacking -- I found one with "snirtstorm parabola".)

But seriously, I'm no expert on voice recognition algorithms, but I think it's a pretty safe bet that if you think a human has said "snirtstorm", you had better go with your second best guess instead. Although I do appreciate the creative capitalization of words in mid-sentence.