(no subject)

Lately I've taken a few tasks that involve editing an interview transcription and checking it against the recording. This can be interesting and highly informative, but the computer sometimes has problems. This latest one required an application new to me. On the one hand, it allows for speed changes (without octave changes somehow) and skipping at set intervals; on the other hand, you can't scroll or tell it the exact second from which you want to start. This is a minor pain when I have to restart after closing an application, but it's a considerable pain when I have to listen to a hard-to-understand portion (usually an undefined acronym) again and again. To make matters worse, yesterday it mysteriously refused to recognize speed changes. Whenever I wanted to go back a split second, I had to go back at least 30 seconds. Hopefully that won't happen with this next recording I anticipate.

The original transcript this time was amusing but ultimately unfortunate. We had gotten it from another organization, and in basically every paragraph, anywhere from 1 to 20 words in a row were missing. I can forgive them for altering someone's words to avoid bad grammar - a common problem with oral interviews - but 9 times out of 10, they would either convert a contraction to its spelled-out form or vice versa. I briefly wondered if segments had been transcribed by machine without human intervention. The most common mishearings were "lack tags" instead of "lactation" and, I kid you not, "drugs" instead of "duration." Was somebody on them?

My mom has her own funny account from back when she transcribed from a dictaphone. She kept hearing "Sweet Pea" after the addressee's name and before the apparent address. It was actually "Suite P." My mom was mortified, but her employer found it hilarious.