Yesterday I got into an argument with my mom about the captions on television shows.
First — let me tell you — my mom has and will always be an advocate for deaf and hard of hearing people.
But I think she’s overreacting about this, unless I’m wrong?
We all know that captions do not accurately transcribe what is being said, whether it is live or scripted.
That pisses my mom off so much she gets angry when she hears and sees otherwise.
For me, I don’t care. I could care less that the captions are wrong. The way I view it, I get my information from multiple sources, including the Internet. So, I just roll my eyes if I see something said (through reading lips on the TV) and see the captions say something else.
Are inaccurate captions a bothersome thing for you? Or am I correct in thinking my mom may be overreacting?
Hmm, doesn’t bother me. I can’t be angry at everything DEAFIA-related. But let’s see, I do get mad when there’s NO captions or it’s lousy (which happens a lot on HD channels, grr).
No, my hearing boyfriend gets aggravated too. I am like you, I am just glad to be able to follow along. Now when the CC lags behind in timing, that annoys me a LOT more.
-DC
I am hearing, so I don’t always depend on the captions, but often prefer to listen with the sound way down, and the captions on.
I have to agree with the two comments above, the worst is no captions, or the late night tv live captions, where everybody laughs, and then you see the joke. It reminds me of the sign I learned, “Train go” or “Train has left the station”.
Since late night is when I use captions most, so as not to disturb others, I will only watch if the guest is really compelling. And comedians? No way, just not funny when the captions are that far behind.
As a person who captions, I understand some of the difficulties in captioning, so mistakes are just funny to me, and are usually on real-time, semi live captions.
I love watching the news and seeing “insert commentary here as appropriate”, or “I was driving” instead of “the assailant was driving”. It reminds me there is a lot of work behind capitoning.
(and I make a lot of mistakes too) *captioning*
First of all, go make up with your mom.
Finished? Ok. Captioning errors don’t bother me. Much. But when these errors cause lags or unreadability – now that bugs me!
I concur with Josh.
Josh — done.
I should have used the word “disagreement” not “argument”. We didn’t argue, we disagreed on our views about captioning.
Thanks to all who left comments.
I agree with Adam – can’t be mad at everything deaf related. I am just happy to even have captions. What is one word error going to do – kill me? No. BUT, I will absolutely get pissed off to no end if the captions suddenly stop working midway through the show!!! Or if a show’s captions are completely garbled. How disappointing! Otherwise, just a few errors? No problem!
I think there’s a fine line between being pissy over little errors, and complete omissions. We’ve all heard the debate over Sesame Street’s dumbed-down captions (they don’t caption half of what is said because of “timing” – my ass!). They did that even when I was little…which is really, really stupid, IMHO.
But it does become a-n-n-o-y-i-n-g when captioners can’t spell worth a damn and don’t use proper grammar.
We have a HDTV and the captioning is just atrocious for some of the shows (namely Leno). This is more technical-related, though, than omission of words. Still working on finding workarounds and resolutions to the issues we encounter.
Anyway, I think I’m kinda in between you and your mom – I absolutely support her “outrage” but at the same time, we have to pick our battles…
Actually, captioning errors really tick me off. I almost always notice them. If they don’t interfere with comprehension, that’s ok, but if words are missing or too delayed my brain scrambles because I can’t match what I see with what I hear.