Just Say...

I hope today's post doesn't end in a tirade,I will do my best to keep myself in check. I don't believe I have unusually bad diction but when a confronted with a phone menu that wants a yes or no answer the computer generated voice consistently tells me they don't recognize my response. It seems to me that the "y" sound and the "n" sound alone would be enough to differentiate between the two responses,but as I said that never happens. Today when I was asked to say what language I wanted to use I just said nothing and waited to hear what number to press instead. This isn't a new technology so one would think that the bugs would have been worked out of it long before now.
As long as I am talking about speech oddities another thing I often wonder about is people saying shore for the word sure...what do they say when they want to say shore? The same puzzle exists when people say ax for the word ask. I have tried to look this up and find an answer but haven't ever come close,other than it seems to be more prominent on the east coast and parts of the Midwest.