Adventures in Horrible Spelling

[PriamNevhausten]

So, as some of you may recall, I do captioning work for hard-of-hearing students at a nearby university. One of my classes is a three-hour one, and I am a new captionist, so I am scheduled to have a tag-team partner with whom I alternate duties in order to not have one person typing like a crazy fucker for three straight hours. Of course, being as typing speeds rarely keep pace with spoken word dialogue, it is distinctly possible (and likely) that orthographic errors will take place. This is why one of the two captionists for any given tag-team assignment will be assigned to edit the transcript to make it readable as a final draft to be sent as the official document.

I am the editor for this three hour class, and this was fine for the first few weeks when I was scheduled aside a veteran captionist. Unfortunately, however, schedule changes and whatever else have left me with someone who is decidedly less knowledgeable about her spelling. It takes me about three times as long to correct transcripts now, but it leaves me with some hilarious things to read! I share them with you now! LAUGH AT MY PAIN.

It bears mentioning that this teacher in particular is already kind of daffy. She's mentioned recent events involving "Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Katherine," and talked about things involving U.S. territories that are not states, "like Puerto Rico and American Somalia."

Enough of that. On with the misspellings!

"carpotunnel" -- Carpal tunnel. How she can misspell this, being a person who types for a paycheck, is a mystery.
"weriod" -- weird.
"respoinsiblitiy"
"criterical"
"sydonme"
"syberal plasy" -- Cerebral Palsy.

This list will be updated periodically with more ridiculously horrible spellings, for your collective amusement and my catharsis. Stay tuned! <p><span style="font-size:xx-small;">"It's in the air, in the headlines in the newspapers, in the blurry images on television. It is a secret you have yet to grasp, although the first syllable has been spoken in a dream you cannot quite recall." --Unknown Armies</span></p>

[Nick Shogun]

Cerebral Palsy made me cry. How can you let this person LIVE?<i/> <p><div style="text-align:center">

www.livejournal.com/users/jankenpo/
Jan-Ken-Po, an Online Webcomic. Updated spontaneously, and without notice!
</div></p>[i]

[BrainWalker]

How does a person whose typing is that freaking bad get a job typing? <p><div style="text-align:center"></div></p>

[PriamNevhausten]

It bears mentioning that these are only the most humorously bad errors. There are lesser errors with which her typing is absolutely rife. The woman can't tell the difference between 'their,' 'there,' and 'they're,' for Christ's sake. I can always tell precisely when I get to her turn in the transcript because I stop correcting little shit like capitalizing Wednesday and go on to things like figuring out 'deicdinga do not' was supposed to be 'deciding and' (the 'do not' being a loose 'dn' left off from the 'and,' getting translated by the super-code).

If this kind of thing happens next quarter, then for my third quarter I will begin requesting that I work all of my assignments alone. Three hours? Four hours? No problem, at least I know it's done right the first time. <p><span style="font-size:xx-small;">"It's in the air, in the headlines in the newspapers, in the blurry images on television. It is a secret you have yet to grasp, although the first syllable has been spoken in a dream you cannot quite recall." --Unknown Armies</span></p>Edited by: [url=http://p068.ezboard.com/brpgww60462.showUserPublicProfile?gid=priamnevhausten>PriamNevhausten</A]&nbsp; at: 10/19/05 12:26

[The Great Nevareh]

Wow. Is it just her typing that's bad, or does she speak in somewhat spotty/gramatically incorrect English as well? <p>[---------------------------]
"There is great disorder under Heaven, and the situation is excellent."
-Mao Tse-Tung

"I eat the talking bees because I am George Washington Christ"
-From "Bob the Ball"</p>

[PriamNevhausten]

Her speech is fine, which makes errors like this an utter bafflement. <p><span style="font-size:xx-small;">"It's in the air, in the headlines in the newspapers, in the blurry images on television. It is a secret you have yet to grasp, although the first syllable has been spoken in a dream you cannot quite recall." --Unknown Armies</span></p>

[Besyanteo]

I can actuqlly relate to this. I would think, from my own experience, that she can type well -- at her own speed. However, I'll bet you five bucks that she's a perfectly decent person at linguistics and a slow typist, meaning that when she tries to keep up with an hours worht of dictation, she starts to go nuts. She has no time to translate the meaning, only time to clumsily bang out letters that will have meaning to you, the editor, later on. She knows you can understand most of it, and hence later on it will be corrected.

For and example of this kind of problem in real time, come bvier w me trying to type in chat room, jsut like this!@

It's not always pretty, but it's not like she has time to go back and fix it. <p>

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[PriamNevhausten]

Actually, that's the worst part. Part of the training for this certification involves learning active listening skills, so you can reduce the number of words you need to type and still get the meaning down if you can't get it verbatim.

I usually do get it verbatim, at least 80% of the verbiage. Which is a damn lot. She, on the other hand, does not, and already instigates processes to shift down her typing burden. So a paragraph that goes like this...*pulls a paragraph from some webpage*

"To anyone who wondered how horror stories about an elevated communist threat could possibly be popular, the answer was that they served the needs of hundreds of thousands of people who worked for the Federal Government or enjoyed its largesse. Bad news justified bigger military budgets, which enriched defense contractors, boosted employment in key congressional districts, and increased the influence of cold warriors in the Pentagon. Bad news united the nation and weakened opposition to legislation which rode in on the coat tails of anticommunist hysteria. Most of all, bad news enhanced nuclear drama, which inflated the importance of government in general and the Executive Branch in particular."

...would probably come out looking something more like this...

"Stories about communist threats were popular because people in the Federal Government used them, and got bigger budgets and more influence. People were united. The government looked more important."

This is already a damnably short shortening, and leaves out a lot of details, but I see this kind of thing in her parts of the transcripts all the time. Except hers would be more like...

"storeis about comunist threats wer epopualr becase people in the fedreal govrenment used them, an dgot bigger bugets and more influensce. people were united. the goverment looked more impotant."

I don't know if EZboard leaves that or foreshortens them, but there are supposed to be two and three spaces between those sentences instead of one. Argh. <p><span style="font-size:xx-small;">"It's in the air, in the headlines in the newspapers, in the blurry images on television. It is a secret you have yet to grasp, although the first syllable has been spoken in a dream you cannot quite recall." --Unknown Armies</span></p>Edited by: [url=http://p068.ezboard.com/brpgww60462.showUserPublicProfile?gid=priamnevhausten>PriamNevhausten</A]&nbsp; at: 10/19/05 23:59

[Besyanteo]

.... Ow. My fucking soul. <p>

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[SALSAlys]

...owies.

And I appreciate the stenographer types that help my deaf classmate a lot more now. They're ace.

[Zemyla]

You have a problem with people putting two spaces between sentences instead of one? That's the way I was taught.

Granted, there's a whole bunch more to nitpick about, but that was what I fixated on. <p>-----
Do not taunt Happy Fun Zemyla.

<span style="font-size:xx-small;">I think boobs are the lesser of two evils. - Inverse (Pervy)
Dammit, Dan, I'm not dating a damn NPC! - OOC Will (Will Baseton)
Of course! Anything worth doing is worth doing completely wrong! - Travis English
Ultimately, wizards and clerics don't say, "Gee, I want to become a lich because weapons hurt less and I don't have to worry about being backstabbed; that whole 'eternal life' thing is just a fringe benefit."-Darklion
But this one time I killed a walrus with my bare hands, and I suddenly understood spherical coordinates. - KnightsofSquare
Also, when you've worked a 36-hour shift as an intern you too just might pour yourself a catful of coffee and sit down to cuddle with your travel mug. -eirehound
</span>

Adventurers! | RPG World World | The Phantom Lord's OT Board mkII | Indie Madnesse | Brotherhood of Elitist Bastards</p>

[Archmage144]

I was taught that, as well, and promptly ignored it. I have never, ever seen it come up as "proper" anywhere except in typing class. <p>

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[Evil Killer Poptarts]

Two spaces between sentences is MLA format, the format of pretty much all writing you'll ever find commercially.

One space between sentences is APA format, which is the format of psychologists and FREENING NAZIS.

...yes, I've had to switch from MLA to APA recently, and it hasn't been pretty. I've had to relearn everything in light of APA being stupid and making everything look ugly. *fume* <p><div style="text-align:center"></div></p>

[BrainWalker]

If she commits that grievous a sin against the lecture's original content and you have to spend so long correcting her ridiculousness, wouldn't it be a better idea in the long run to just record the lecture and type from that? <p><div style="text-align:center"></div></p>

[PriamNevhausten]

Probably. But there are two problems with this: One, it would be incredibly more time-consuming, and some professors do not usually give their consent to have their classes recorded. Two, the whole purpose of this abbreviation system is to have another terminal in front of the student so they can get the idea of what is being said as it is being said, and can respond with questions and clarifications while it is still valid. <p><span style="font-size:xx-small;">"It's in the air, in the headlines in the newspapers, in the blurry images on television. It is a secret you have yet to grasp, although the first syllable has been spoken in a dream you cannot quite recall." --Unknown Armies</span></p>

[BrainWalker]

Fair enough. Still, the whole "editing" process seems to kill much of the intended expediency of your work.

... which is pretty much what you've been saying this whole time. Oh well.

Perhaps having a more refined transcript to read after the fact would be useful? I dunno, I'm just throwing stuff out there. That's probably above and behind the call of duty. Plus it would sort of give students for whom the captioning is provided kind of an unfair advantage in note-taking. Still, it also seems unfair for them to have to settle for abridged shorthand that doesn't quite capture the intention of the lecture. Oh well. <p><div style="text-align:center"></div></p>Edited by: [url=http://p068.ezboard.com/brpgww60462.showUserPublicProfile?gid=brainwalker>BrainWalker</A]&nbsp; at: 10/21/05 18:19

[Evil Killer Poptarts]

What I don't understand is, (and this is purely the impression I've gotten, feel free to correct me,) why don't the professors work more closely with the deaf students? Give them detailed outlines of what they'll cover in class, and present most of the information in powerpoint, and then expand on it instead? Then the typist could know the basic ideas and just add to them. This is just an idea, and I know that not every college is like mine with a projector in every room... <p><div style="text-align:center"></div></p>

[PriamNevhausten]

Actually, that's part of our job. If possible, we get with the instructor beforehand and determine the general course of the class, like whether any particular terminology will be used or how to spell this or that jargon word, so that we can be prepared.

Not that this happens a lot of the time, mind you, but the idea is there. Generally we collectively find that we can most often handle whatever is thrown at us, within acceptable limits.

Also, the transcripts thing (which we do and must provide, as this 'final draft' that I must hammer out for my classes) is not necessarily unfair--we, the captionists, can provide the professor/instructor/TA/whatever with a copy of the transcript if they wish, and then they can distribute this to the whole class if they so desire. But that is in the professor's hands--confidentiality demands that we captionists only provide for A) the client, B) the speaker, and C) the contractor (in this case, Community Services for the Deaf, Dayton).

To address EKP's point: it would be tremendously inconvenient to address Deaf students separately from the rest of the class, and a little demeaning. The entire purpose of things like closed captioning and C-Print abbreviatory captioning and ASL interpreting and other such immediate services is to make the experience for the hard-of-hearing person as close to identical as possible to the experience garnered by a person who has full use of their hearing sense. Deaf people as a whole, I've found, do not want special treatment--just equal treatment. <p><span style="font-size:xx-small;">"It's in the air, in the headlines in the newspapers, in the blurry images on television. It is a secret you have yet to grasp, although the first syllable has been spoken in a dream you cannot quite recall." --Unknown Armies</span></p>Edited by: [url=http://p068.ezboard.com/brpgww60462.showUserPublicProfile?gid=priamnevhausten>PriamNevhausten</A]&nbsp; at: 10/22/05 2:03

[BrainWalker]

Kind of like the majority of people with some form of disability. <p><div style="text-align:center"></div></p>

[PriamNevhausten]

Oh my. "Cerebral Palsy" came up again in class today, and what came off her fingers was even worse.

"asbalplsy." I shit you not. <p><span style="font-size:xx-small;">"It's in the air, in the headlines in the newspapers, in the blurry images on television. It is a secret you have yet to grasp, although the first syllable has been spoken in a dream you cannot quite recall." --Unknown Armies</span></p>

[Besyanteo]

:{ <p>

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[Zemyla]

She's just banging her head on the keyboard now. :{ <p>-----
Do not taunt Happy Fun Zemyla.

<span style="font-size:xx-small;">I think boobs are the lesser of two evils. - Inverse (Pervy)
Dammit, Dan, I'm not dating a damn NPC! - OOC Will (Will Baseton)
Of course! Anything worth doing is worth doing completely wrong! - Travis English
Ultimately, wizards and clerics don't say, "Gee, I want to become a lich because weapons hurt less and I don't have to worry about being backstabbed; that whole 'eternal life' thing is just a fringe benefit."-Darklion
But this one time I killed a walrus with my bare hands, and I suddenly understood spherical coordinates. - KnightsofSquare
Also, when you've worked a 36-hour shift as an intern you too just might pour yourself a catful of coffee and sit down to cuddle with your travel mug. -eirehound
</span>

Adventurers! | RPG World World | The Phantom Lord's OT Board mkII | Indie Madnesse | Brotherhood of Elitist Bastards</p>

[PriamNevhausten]

I would have thought so myself, were I not right there, watching her fingers wreak such ineffable nonsense. <p><span style="font-size:xx-small;">"It's in the air, in the headlines in the newspapers, in the blurry images on television. It is a secret you have yet to grasp, although the first syllable has been spoken in a dream you cannot quite recall." --Unknown Armies</span></p>

[Dragon Sage007]

I feel that math will be the only way to happily solve this problem.

One shovel + her ten fingers = One happy Priam, who will undoubtedly get a better assistant. <p>

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<div style="text-align:center">I have no idea how this happened. Really</div></p>