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(no subject)
Apr. 24th, 2009 11:08 am
Another subtitling triumph, spotted by my mother on BBC 10 O'Clock News:Chancellor announces scrap bitch scheme
Another subtitling triumph, spotted by my mother on BBC 10 O'Clock News:
(no subject)
Dec. 10th, 2008 11:18 am
BBC News subtitles have so much to teach us about the world. Last night alone I learnt that an EU mission is going to “rust police and justice services” in Kosovo, that the governor of Illinois has been trying to sell the senate seat of “President Lech Barack Obama” and that there has been more rioting today in “several Grix kitties”.(no subject)
Nov. 9th, 2005 09:58 amMore live subtitling confusement. BBC News 24 has all the rollercoaster fun of high-speed simultaneous transcription for fully half an hour every hour, so the screw-up stakes are raised a bit. They didn’t let me down last night: among the ordinary, everyday errors (the woman who married a conman with a fake identity saying “I was stew stupid”; the police demanding to intern “terraced suspects”) came the startling news, over footage of protestors at the Chinese state visit to Buckingham Palace, that “Protestors were gang-raped on the wall”. I watched on, baffled, but the rest of the report simply went on to describe the ensuing uneventful diplomatic dinner. Then suddenly, with no preamble, a correction: “Protestors gathered on the Mall”.
More please, BBC.
More please, BBC.
Veterans of Ceefax subtitles will know that using them can be a baffling experience. Current affairs programmes tend to be titled live by harassed stenographers, leading to countless lexicographical casualties: “The Prime Minister said that alkjf arbg zhnuf fekldp by the end of next week”, and similar alien transmissions. Occasionally it can be life-affirmingly daft, such as the other evening when Newsnight did a piece on the American private at the heart of the Abu Ghraib hi-jinks, the notorious “London Undergroundy England”.
So when Ceefax informed me a couple of months ago of ”rogue lemons in Sinn Fein”, I just thought it was more of the same. However, in the light of the fruit-based attack on the British Consulate [1], I’m no longer sure.
Incidentally, can it be credible that it’s just a coincidence![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
missfrost posted about ”hot fruit salad” just two days before the attack? I suspect the NYPD won’t think so either.
[1]New York's police commissioner has said that the fruit-alike “novelty grenades” used were of the type “that people might keep on their desks”.
So when Ceefax informed me a couple of months ago of ”rogue lemons in Sinn Fein”, I just thought it was more of the same. However, in the light of the fruit-based attack on the British Consulate [1], I’m no longer sure.
Incidentally, can it be credible that it’s just a coincidence
missfrost posted about ”hot fruit salad” just two days before the attack? I suspect the NYPD won’t think so either. [1]New York's police commissioner has said that the fruit-alike “novelty grenades” used were of the type “that people might keep on their desks”.
(no subject)
May. 8th, 2005 08:34 pmThere's a fine art to the concise headline, and the people currently working at Ceefax don't entirely seem to have learnt it. This has led recently to the faintly puzzling image of "Three held over car on tracks", the worrying news of "Iraqis swearing in cabinet", and my favourite so far, "VE Day remembered after 60 years" ("Damn it, Geoffrey, I can barely even remember my mother's birthday, how the hell was I supposed...?").
