Gobbledigook
Jan. 14th, 2010 06:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueIn my day job as a captioner, I have two directly conflicting duties: I am supposed to faithfully record what is being said, and I am also supposed to do my best to follow reasonable usage guidelines. Sometimes, people say stuff like this:
"With American casualties, we are still continuing to renew our search. We will continue to be looking through the rubble for others. We still have several Americans unaccounted for of which we are aware at this time. Unless we have a more specific update, we will try to provide that by the end of the day. With respect to Haiti, having spent a fair amount of time there in the last nine months -- the Haitians are very proud people, and properly so. More particularly, this is a government that is committed to providing the kind of partnership that would be necessary to be effective with an international community."
Ignore the content. Look at the words. Look at the gibberish. This is a native speaker who has presumably not suffered football concussions in her role as head of a major U.S. government agency. Madam, I assure you - you can say more with fewer words.
"We continue to search for American casualties among the rubble; several Americans are still unaccounted for. We will provide updates when we have them. I've spent a lot of the last nine months in Haiti. Hatians are proud people, and properly so. More particularly, this government is comitted to effective international partnerships."
That's half the words. Half.
"With American casualties, we are still continuing to renew our search. We will continue to be looking through the rubble for others. We still have several Americans unaccounted for of which we are aware at this time. Unless we have a more specific update, we will try to provide that by the end of the day. With respect to Haiti, having spent a fair amount of time there in the last nine months -- the Haitians are very proud people, and properly so. More particularly, this is a government that is committed to providing the kind of partnership that would be necessary to be effective with an international community."
Ignore the content. Look at the words. Look at the gibberish. This is a native speaker who has presumably not suffered football concussions in her role as head of a major U.S. government agency. Madam, I assure you - you can say more with fewer words.
"We continue to search for American casualties among the rubble; several Americans are still unaccounted for. We will provide updates when we have them. I've spent a lot of the last nine months in Haiti. Hatians are proud people, and properly so. More particularly, this government is comitted to effective international partnerships."
That's half the words. Half.
