Friday, March 21, 2008

Captious Caption

I was watching a tape of American Idol, and Paula Abdul told one of the singers--well, I wasn't sure, since she swallowed the words. I replayed it several times. Finally I put on the closed captioning so I could read it.

But the funny thing was this time around I was able to make out Paula's compliment: "you're 'F' for 'fantastic.'" But whoever was in charge of the CC (and it was being done in real time) apparently couldn't, and typed "'S' for 'standout.'"

I wonder how often this happens. It's tough enough to type that fast--is there any training in hearing what's actually being said?

PS I'm sorry to see Amanda go. She was my favorite contestant.

3 Comments:

Blogger New England Guy said...

When my child was a baby 10 years ago I often had the TV on in the background and the CC on (it took him a long time to fall asleep) and this kind of mistake was fairly frequent.

As one who has to hear things several times to hear the right words, I'm surprised it didn't happen more often (For over a decade I thought Freddie Mercury was singing about a girl from "Weathurst, Connecticut")

6:10 AM, March 21, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sorry for being clueless,NEGuy, but what were the real words?

4:48 PM, March 21, 2008  
Blogger New England Guy said...

Pardons- I was spending an er.. uh... traditional Easter Weekend unplugged (not exciting- just hiking in the woods trying to sweat out my bile)

The line (which I think LA guy may have been the one to correct me) is from Queen's "Killer Queen" and was "well-versed in etiquette"

I won't look up the lyrics on lyricdepot.com because one of the other lines I think I hear is -is "godified in cheddar cheese" (right around when they sign "dynamite with a laser beam") and I have now heard that for over 30 years and it has surpassed in my imagination whatever the original lines were there.

8:24 AM, March 24, 2008  

Post a Comment

<< Home

web page hit counter