Many thanks to One Good Thing, who helped me rediscover one of my favorite Internet absurdity time sinks. If you go to Merriam-Webster’s site and look up a word, it will not only give you the definition, it will also give you a little speaker icon which lets you hear the word pronounced. It will say any word. Yes, any word “at least I haven’t stumped it yet”, no matter how silly, prurient or NC-17. With a little work, you can have it say entire sentences. This is very useful for leaving voice mail for someone who needs to be told anonymously that he is an odoriferous Belgian pizzle pirate.
I got a little frustrated though, because I can’t get it to say Plooble, since Plooble isn’t in the dictionary “yet”. I did some poking around on the web, and hoo, boy; if you thought the talking dictionary sounded like fun, wait until you try the AT&T Labs text-to-speech generator. Select the voice of “Charles: UK English and have him say, “Oh dear. I’m afraid I’ve soiled myself”
Hmm? 38. Why do you ask?
Voiceover work isn’t very steady, so me and the gang there have started another little venture. Operators are standing by.