Mushmouth Speakers

[Jennie Ann]

This speaker I am working on right now is a mushmouth, and he is driving me bananas. He rolls over his words, and if you don't listen carefully, you miss what he is saying.

If you listen to the 10-second recording, this man spits out words like a machine gun. There is one portion where he spits out 7 words in less than one second. I couldn't believe it.

People like this are difficult to transcribe. When you encounter somebody like this, do you ask them to slow down or what?

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

I have them repeat themselves. I don't rely on the audio. In my experience, if I don't hear it well with my own ears, chances are the audio will be garbage, as well, in that spot.

[Debera Anne Doran]

I've learned it doesn't help to ask people to slow down; people cannot change their natural speaking habits. I just have to write faster or ask them to repeat.

[Lisa Moskowitz]

LOL, that's speaking clearly compared to one attorney I work for from time to time. Most attorneys do the admonitions fast, but this guy does it so fast that he can't get the words out and trips over what he says on top of being a mushmouth. Thankfully he literally says the same thing every time so I can fix it later. He's a WCAB attorney so most of his questions are the same from depo to depo as well, but at least the questions are a tad slower so I can understand him better.

[Jennie Ann]

I'm glad to hear that you all are tough when it comes to those doggone mushmouth speakers. LOL@Allison's mushmouth ears.

After I proof some of these transcripts, it is amazing what I can hear the second time around that I did not hear the first time. Maybe it is because I get used to the person's mushmouth voice and subject matter.

There are some transcripts that I cannot insert any [inaudible], [unintelligible], or [indiscernible] parentheticals if I cannot understand what was said. These are not legal transcripts, and so I have a little wiggle room to make it read right. If I have to produce a verbatim transcript of a mushmouth, well, I'm going to type exactly what I heard. You know what they say: Garbage in, garbage out.