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  • Harvard sentences

    From Ben Collver@21:1/5 to All on Mon Feb 27 15:00:35 2023
    Harvard sentences
    =================

    Pardon the ASCII art:

    +-+
    | |
    | |
    | |
    | |
    +-+
    | |
    +-+-+-----------+
    | |
    | |
    | ############# |
    | ############# |
    | |
    +---------------+ One day when playing with
    |+-------------+| Iridium, I overheard the
    || Iridium || most peculiar message:
    || ||
    |+-------------+| "The hog crawled under
    |===============| the high fence. Move the
    +---------------+ var over the hot fire."
    |[ ][ ][ ]|
    | ___ ___ ___ | It sounded like something
    |[ 1 ][ 2 ][ 3 ]| straight out of a bond movie!
    | ___ ___ ___ |
    |[ 4 ][ 5 ][ 6 ]|
    | ___ ___ ___ |
    |[ 7 ][ 8 ][ 9 ]|
    | ___ ___ ___ |
    |[ # ][ 0 ][ * ]|
    +---------------+


    After some investigation, it turns out these are called
    'harvard sentences' and are designed to be phonetically
    balanced and used in testing of telcom systems.
    Ah that makes complete sense now. - Alas, not 007.

    When talking about this on sdf's #gopher channel, cat
    (from baud.baby) shared a phone number that gives an
    endless stream of these: (858) 651-5050

    Next time you find yourself in need for some
    phonetically balanced goodness, you can give that one
    a ring!

    From: gopher://gopher.linkerror.com/1/harvard_sentences

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Mike Spencer@21:1/5 to Ben Collver on Mon Feb 27 15:54:10 2023
    Ben Collver <bencollver@tilde.pink> writes:

    Harvard sentences
    =================

    [Iridium...SNIP...]

    "The hog crawled under the high fence. Move the var over the hot
    fire."
    [snip]
    After some investigation, it turns out these are called
    'harvard sentences' and are designed to be phonetically
    balanced and used in testing of telcom systems.
    Ah that makes complete sense now. - Alas, not 007.

    Interesting. Never heard of that. Intriguing. Hmmm...

    Having lived in western Massachusetts where "General American"
    pronunciation prevailed, I'd surmise that if they're *Harvard*
    sentences, (would that be "Hahv'd"?), that would be "The hog crawled
    unda the high fence. Move the vah ovah the hot fie-ah", confusing to audio/telecom geeks from, say, San Francisco or Wayside, Texas.

    When talking about this on sdf's #gopher channel, cat
    (from baud.baby) shared a phone number that gives an
    endless stream of these: (858) 651-5050

    I seem to have misplaced the phone number you could call to listen to
    a venerated Japanese volcano which I would have offered in return.
    Sorry.

    Next time you find yourself in need for some
    phonetically balanced goodness, you can give that one
    a ring!

    From: gopher://gopher.linkerror.com/1/harvard_sentences

    --
    Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)