Something borrowed…

In the last week  or so, articles in first the Telegraph and then The Mail about live subtitling had a lot of fun featuring funny subtitling errors like the Archbishop of Canterbury being called ‘the arch bitch of Canterbury’ and Ed Milliband being called ‘Ed Miller Band.’

Both articles also laid into the BBC, but more about that later.

There was something awfully familiar about the Telegraph article, and I got a number of Tweets (thanks to @leocondie and @pickwick) about it which encouraged me to take a closer look. Bit of an eye opener.

So… here’s an extract:

Pre-recorded subtitles are done before transmission and appear in time with the programme. Live subtitles, however, are made by a stenographer typing words phonetically as they listen to a show, or with speech recognition, where someone talks into a microphone while listening to the broadcast, and a computer recognises their words.

The latter can lead to the use of words that sound similar to the intended one, but give a very different meaning.

And for comparison, here’s an extract from my article about the world’s worst subtitling mistake back in January:

Deaf people love prerecorded subtitles – these have been carefully done before transmission and appear in time with the programme. Live subtitles are a different story. They are made by a stenographer typing words phonetically as they listen to a show, or with speech recognition, where someone talks into a microphone while listening to the broadcast, and a computer recognises their words.

It is the latter version that leads to the use of words that sound similar to the intended one, but give a very different meaning. 

Hmmm.

Then, in The Mail’s article, I could clearly see the outline of my television and living room wall because they used (without asking) my photo of the ‘Wellies’ subtitling mistake.

Maybe I should contact the Telegraph and The Mail and ask for my cut?