Microsoft Sam

Microsoft Sam is the default text-to-speech voice in Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP. It is used by the screen reader program built into the operating system.

Glitches

There are several glitches with Microsoft Sam that cause him to pronounce words incorrectly. Following is a list of glitches that have been found.

• Most famously, he cannot pronounce the word "soy", but instead will make a sound resembling a helicopter blade. This led to a fairly popular internet meme. However, if "swah" is typed in, it sounds like a brief utterance the word "soy," but only either on its own or with a comma or full stop directly after it. Lastly, if you type in "soy" and the next word begins with a "w" sound (e.g. "water", "week", "oui"), he will say the word correctly.
• "Bling" is pronounced with the first two letters enunciated individually. The "Plus" version of Sam included with third-party text-to-speech programs has this corrected.
• "Crotch" is said as "crow's nest", with the correct pronunciation realized if "krotch" is typed instead. This is perhaps due to a small referencing error in the pronunciation dictionary, as "crotch" and "crow's nest" are alphabetically very close. In the "Plus" version, both spellings will yield the expected word.
• "Enjoy" is pronounced correctly. However, if the next word begins with a /ð/ sound (e.g. "this", "that" "them"), then he says it as "EnjWAH" (e.g. "I enjoy the meal"). The same happens if "joy" is used (e.g. "The joy this brings me").
• "Honest," along with its grammatical variants "honor" and "honestly," are spoken as "innest," "inner," and "innestly," respectively. If there is a word before, he will say it correctly (e.g. "Your honor, I am honestly very honest").
• "Pling" is pronounced as "placing", with "placing" pronounced exactly the same. This is fixed in the "Plus" version.
• "Pointer" is pronounced as "pwanter", fixed in the "Plus" version.
• Wasteman: Microsoft Sam cannot say it as one word. Instead, he says "waste-e-man", and if one doesn't want him to pronounce the E in "wasteman", he will say "wastman". He also pronounces the correct spelling as "wastman" on the Speakonia version.
• Pow: Microsoft Sam just says the letters (except in the Speakonia version).
• Nevada: Microsoft Sam will pronounce it "Ne-da-da".
• Gegege: Microsoft Sam says "Gage". In the Speakonia version, he says "jeh-jej" instead.
• Toyota: Microsoft Sam says "Toytoda" (he pronounces it correctly in the Speakonia version).
• Ferrari: Microsoft Sam says "Feluhry" (he pronounces it correctly in the Speakonia version).
• Pendulum: Microsoft Sam says "gendulum" (he pronounces it correctly in the Speakonia version).
• Australia: Microsoft Sam says "Orfstralia" (he pronounces it correctly in the Speakonia version).
• Dirty: Microsoft Sam can't pronounce the D correctly if the word is followed with a previous one (such as "get dirty"). It instead makes a sharp tapping sound on the D. This doesn't happen in Speakonia.
• Typing in a four digit number will separate the tens (e.g. we pronounce 12:34 as "twelve thirty-four"). Anything above 5 digits and below is pronounced correctly, i.e., 54143 is pronounced "fifty-four thousand one-hundred forty-three". Four-digit numbers are still pronounced the same in Speakonia, however.
• Pixar: Microsoft Sam pronounces it as "Pee Shar" (similar to the Brazilian pronunciation of the letter X). He pronounces it "PICKS-er" in the Speakonia version.
• Moe: Microsoft Sam will only say a brief "mih" (but not in the Speakonia version).
• Leon: Microsoft Sam pronounces it as "Le Bom" (but not in the Speakonia version).
• Any word beginning with the "haw" sound is pronounced "daw" (except in Speakonia).
• Typing in "0000" results in Microsoft Sam saying "hundred" (he pronounces each digit separately in Speakonia, however).
• Puppet: Sam says "pohpet".
• Thaw: A sharp gap is heard after the "th". In Speakonia, however, he sounds like he is saying "saw".
• Yah: There is a snapping sound after the Y (though not in the Speakonia version).
• If he tries to say "yeah", he pronounces it as "yanna". He pronounces it as a short "year" in Speakonia.
• If he tries to say "ha", it comes out as "fa". Typing in the word excessively causes it to sound something like "folly folly folly folly folly fag folly fag folly folly hem molly ka".
• Typing in "lolololololololololol" causes Microsoft Sam to make a sort of "glug glug" sound.
• Typing in "tce tce tce tce tce tce tce tttttttttttttttttttttttte" causes him to imitate the sound of an impact sprinkler.
• Typing in "rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" and playing it at full speed causes him to sound like a motorcycle (with the same trick Microsoft Mike will sound like a Spitfire)
• If you type in "Airmaster" Microsoft Sam will say "Airmister"
• If you type in "no" but put at least seven zeros after the "n", then he will say something like "nouolotu".
• Microsoft Sam can't say "surprising". Instead he says "suprizing".
• If you type in "leather" he says "letter".
• If you type "niceice" he says "nice-ay-chae".
• If you speak Unicode characters, such as Ʒ, Dž, Ɂ, ʔ, Ϻ or Ƣ, he will speak as blank.
• If you speak Cyrillic characters, such as Ғ, х, Ь, Ҕ, ҝ, Ҧ, у, ӑ, Ө, ӈ, Ҷ, Ӣ, ӓ, Ҽ, Ӏ, ӷ, қ, ӌ, Ґ, Ҿ, ҹ, Ҵ, Ҭ, ң, ҿ, ү, ԍ, ҋ, ӕ, Ҹ, Ҭ, Ӧ, ӏ, ҝ, ӫ, ӭ or ӣ, it will stop speaking.

See also

• Microsoft Mary
• Microsoft Anna