Waffle...

[whole diary]

[IndustryInsider]

You would expect longer announcements at the moment due to reminding people about social distancing, but there seems a general trend towards manual announcements (and some automatic ones) of ridiculous length in the last couple of years.

I?m all for providing useful information and reminders, but on the rare occasions I make announcements myself, I?m always mindful to KISS^▸ ('keep it simple, stupid!') and bear in mind that people stop listening after a while.

Yesterday I was on a train where a ?normal? announcement listing stops (of which there were just two), apologising for a short delay, and listing all the protocols was made. 

It lasted over three minutes!

[eightonedee]

At least you were able to hear what was being said.........

[Fourbee]

I'd be happy if the salutations disappeared good morning/afternoon/evening ladies and gentlemen etc. and even thank you at the end and just the salient information piped quickly and directly to my ear drums. Maybe others like the polite version though?

I was on a terminating service to Winchester last Saturday when all the different combinations of onward journey options were enumerated. Simply "customers for stations beyond Winchester should change here for a replacement bus to Eastleigh" would have done IMO^▸ ('in my opinion')!

[Bmblbzzz]

The salutation serves a purpose, especially for the hard of hearing, to "start listening, I'm about to say something important."

[grahame]

The salutation serves a purpose, especially for the hard of hearing, to "start listening, I'm about to say something important."

Have you noticed how many people in common conversation start with "So ...." which also acts as a trigger. Irritating sometimes once you start to notice it ...

[GBM]

so......don't even get me started on those things........like 

so, like, how do you wish to start this topic?

Our daughter, being a knowledgeable sentence construction person has said that commencing with a "so" softens the subsequent sentence.  As does "like"

[stuving]

The salutation serves a purpose, especially for the hard of hearing, to "start listening, I'm about to say something important."

Most communications systems need a preamble of some kind. It may be needed in the transmitter, but much more so in the receiver. For hearing, it allows the system (ear and brain) to get used to the voice, accent, and other language factors that are constant, so you can pick out the variable bits which constitute speech. Where there is channel too (like a dodgy PA^▸ (Public Address (broadcast loudspeaker announcements) or Passenger Assist (railway staff providing physical assistance to passengers with mobility issues), depending on context) system or phone link) that's another constant you need to tune out of the way.

If a stranger abruptly says something brief to you, you probably won't pick out what they said.

[didcotdean]

More on stations than trains, announcements used to be proceeded by an alerting chime to get people's attention. Think this practice seem to fade out in the 80s into the 90s.

On Merseyrail there were two different chimes; A-B-C was used before the regular automated ones, but special manual ones for disruptions etc were preceded by G-E-C, which made them stand out for regular travellers.

[johnneyw]

so......don't even get me started on those things........like 

so, like, how do you wish to start this topic?

Our daughter, being a knowledgeable sentence construction person has said that commencing with a "so" softens the subsequent sentence.  As does "like"

I listened to an interview with some PR^▸ (Public Relations) rep trying to justify/excuse a companies very questionable actions. Every reply to the interviewer's grilling started with "So".....and believe me, there were a fair few questions asked.
Perhaps the PR chap they wheeled out was trying to distract attention from the accusations by being irritating?

[CyclingSid]

The risk is falling asleep and missing your stop.

[Lee]

The following train announcement should really set the standard:



And if you are nostalgic for BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) days, then this one probably covers all the bases: