Legal Writing

Closed captions spelling humor

I was watching MSNBC's "Morning Joe" this morning with the closed captions on. As host Joe Scarborough talked to David Axelrod of the Obama campaign, Axlerod said the Latin phrase "ad nauseam," which means something that continues to the point of nausea. Here is how this phrase was rendered in the captions:

Add gnaws eum

Go to dictionary.com to hear a pronunciation of "ad nauseam."

Go here for a interesting article about closed captioning from the Atlantic.

Here is an article from the National Captioning Institute about how real time captioning is created.

By the way, I am a big fan of closed captioning, and this post is not meant to denigrate the people who do these captions.

Full post as published by Triangle Grammar Guide on May 06, 2008 (boomark / email).