OMG! There's literally "crap" in my transcript! LOL!

[Quyen]

I'm totally mortified ... but also laughing hysterically at myself! I scan my rough ASCIIs to clean up the messy parts and untrans, but I don't read for content. I'm editing a job and ... this is what I came upon:

Q You didn't use the words, "Obtain Mr. Schmoe's* scents," correct?

LOLOLOL!!! It is supposed to read:

Q You didn't use the words, "Obtain Mr. Schmoe's* consent," correct?


*names have been changed to protect the innocent ... or not.

Another time, I misstroked "people," which should be PAOEPL. I'm on Eclipse, and it guesses the closest word if you miss or drag a key. Well, needless to say, in this case, I literally had "poop" in the roughs that I sent out. :/

And ANOTHER time, an attorney was sitting right next to me and reading my screen. I meant to write "submit," which is SPHEIT. Well, I dropped the "P" and wrote SHEIT ... which is ... well, "sh!t." He saw it before I could delete it to rewrite it, pointed at it on my screen and laughed out loud during the deposition! Made me laugh too. Everybody was looking at us like, "What are you two up to?"

Have you ever come up with anything mortifying/funny after having sent out your rough? Please share! :)

[Susana Abeyta]

Well, I didn't put it in there. A very nice, well-seasoned reporter told me to add an asterisk to all possible swear words in my dictionary, because you never know when a mistroke will bring one up. Good advice. Since then -- knock on wood -- no more accidental swear words.

You did make me laugh. I like your attitude. I'm glad I haven't hit one of those hiccoughs on read back.

Thanks

[Janet]

Ouch!

[Quyen]

O...M...G... "pinching penis!!!" Hysterical!

[Naola "Sam" Vaughn]

Years ago I had a FINAL transcript that went out because apparently I didn't catch it proofing and the spell check, of course, wouldn't stop on it. But the sentence was supposed to read "The pen is on the table," and it came out, of course, as "The penis on the table." Needless to say, I started writing pen is and penis totally differently. Had to also send out a new page for the final transcript to both attorneys with an explanation letter.

A few months ago I was captioning a job and producing a transcript. I'm a realtimer but not a captioner, but this particular job they wanted captioning for a federal agency to go out over their website for interested parties and also for the local TV station. I had just a few days before loaded the latest firmware update for my machine (a LightSpeed), spent 5 to 10 minutes writing, everything seemed fine. But I was using the company's computer because they had it hooked up for the captioning, and about 5 min into the job, there was lots of mistrans coming up. And one of the things it was doing was stacking strokes even when they were separately written, and I write out "if you could" in separate strokes so as not to be confused with the "f" word. One of the judge's favorite phrases was "if you could." Needless to say, the "f" word came up twice before I could literally reach up and go into my dictionary and delete it on the fly. I was told later it came up a total of 4 times, but I only saw 2. How embarassing. Now I have a separate CART/captioning dictionary that has no "bad" words in it.

[Jody Rake]

I just read these and they are priceless! I was scoping a depo and I got to one place where the audio clearly said "Dickens," as in author Charles, but the transcript said "dick insurance." I've heard of supermodels getting their legs insured, but do you suppose there's a market for this?! :)

[Deborah M.]

Ha! Yeah, maybe for porn stars!

[Quyen]

LMAO!  :D

[Johanna Ledesma]

I was just browsing through the blog today...THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE LAUGHS! I also have had occasion to write a brief and in proofing my transcript, discover the mistake such as writing "TIT" for "at this time" only to discover it wrote...you guessed it, but these were just too funny. Thank you!

[Phil]

best rude one I saw was talking about a CPAP machine.   The reporter said "Greg needs a machine to keep his airways open."   It came out as "Greg needs a MAN to keep his airways open."  Ah, just a missing vowel and there's a totally different way to get a good, safe night's sleep.......  The captioner will remain anonymous.