OSX talking in robot voice & box-highlighting. HEP ME PLEASE!!

[wpc33]

I step away from the computer and when I get back, things I curor over are highlighted in a black box and the Steven Hawking voice is reading everything aloud. Not to mention that the apple toolbar menu lists "restart", "shut down" and "logout..." twice each.
I tried to get this to stop by pressing every F key possible, esc, tried force quitting stuff, restarted, logged out, switched users(the guest account does not have this), I tried Pathfinder, macjanitor, Nothing will stop this!
PLEASE HELP ME

 

[joechops]

Just hold the Apple key on your keyboard and press F5. That should turn it off.

 

[UKnjb]

Hi....

First off, have you accidentally enabled Speech when you didn't want to?
Go to System Preferences (the icon in your dock that looks like an electric light switch from your house), look along the System row and identify the Speech icon (looks like a microphone). If you want everything off, clear all of the check boxes in the three tabs.

BTW, this applies to Panther 10.3.9; not sure if it all handles the same in Tiger.

Good luck - must be VERY annoying.

 

[Gee]

Sounds kinda like you have something from the Universal Access pane in system preferences switched on.

 

[wpc33]

I thought i was going to have to throw my computer through my window, with me attached! Thank you all!!

I must have accidentally pressed control-F5 as unlikely as that would be! How the hell? Thanks again for your help

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

That was hillarious...

...for about 30 seconds, then it became some of the most annoying thing ever...

Now I know what I'll enable on the Mac of the next Mac owner that p***es me off...

 

[solvs]

It's great if you're blind, what it's there for. Not so great if you aren't. I've been playing with the speech feature, which is kinda it's opposite, and that's actually pretty good. I remember using it on OS 8, which wasn't as good.

Just don't turn your TV up too loud, or weird stuff will randomly start happening.