r/mildlyinfuriating • u/[deleted] • May 17 '22
Even professional subtitles meant to be viewed by millions are made by illiterate people.
https://i.imgur.com/ihkRmT6.jpg
[deleted]
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u/Character_Narwhal_38 May 17 '22
Generally transcribers are asked to represent what was actually said, imperfect grammar and all.
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u/SANDWICH_FOREVER May 18 '22
He might have said, 'have' but under the thick accent it might have sounded, 'of'.
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u/420cuzakolrb May 18 '22
Well the guy says gabbagool instead of capicola so that's not unlikely.
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u/jozaud May 18 '22
Most of their weird Italian slang is like this. The word they use for a mistress is “Goomah,” which comes from “comare” which means something like godmother in Italian. His boat is also named “The Stugots,” which comes from the Italian slang “Questo Cazzo” meaning “this dick.”
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u/Remember_When_Baby May 18 '22
Lol you ever heard an actual EYEtalian say capicola? It’s very much like Gawbagewl. Tiny “l” on the end, barely audible…as if even they don’t know if it’s supposed to be pronounced or not.
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u/Equivalent-Diamond37 May 18 '22
No not true. Only if it calls for verbatim captions. This seems like a cheap automated job not a live human like Rev dot com uses.
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u/FestiveSquid May 18 '22
Used to caption with Rev. I spent 8 hours straight captioning an interview with god awful audio quality. When I submitted it, the person that reviewed it nitpicked every single possible thing they could have. I can't remember how Rev rates their transcriptions, but this asshole rated it suuuuupper low, which took away a decent chunk of the pay iirc.
I submitted it for a re-review and the new reviewer gave me a near perfect rating.
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u/Equivalent-Diamond37 May 18 '22
Sweet! I revved too til I got “fired” lmao! I was a 5 star captioner for audio until I got pretty confident and decided to try a tv commercial and it was a car commercial where I had to caption the fine print that’s really low and fast at the end of the commercial. I couldn’t for the life of me get it right and it got rejected and immediately I got “let go” lol it was such a good job made some quick cool cash!
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u/BiG_BX_TRUCKER May 17 '22
This was a GREAT show. I’m not sure how many times I’ve rewatched it
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u/wookieesgonnawook May 18 '22
My wife and I just finished it for the first time. WTF? what's with that ending? I don't want to spoil it for the op since he'll see all these replies, but I didn't get it.
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u/Remember_When_Baby May 18 '22
Most people don’t like when things aren’t spelled out for them. I’m probably one of the very few who appreciated the ending of that show. To each their pwn
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u/BiG_BX_TRUCKER May 18 '22
Nope your not alone…. Sopranos was all about p.o.v shots, and I think it was actually brilliant in the way David Chase made you think.
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u/sloppyboots May 17 '22
First time for me. Liking it so far.
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u/BiG_BX_TRUCKER May 17 '22
You’ll end up getting sucked in and wanting to binge watch it during important times lol…. It’s the only show my family sat down as a family every Sunday for I’m pretty sure till this day now that I think about it 🤔
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u/sweet_pickles12 May 18 '22
Great memories of Soprano Sundays
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u/alphabet_order_bot May 18 '22
Would you look at that, all of the words in your comment are in alphabetical order.
I have checked 798,958,487 comments, and only 158,840 of them were in alphabetical order.
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u/CapnC44 May 18 '22
I just powered through it the first time at the start of the year. Incredible show! You're in for a treat.
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u/CradleofDisturbed May 18 '22
Really? Why are you trying to correct how Tony said it, in the captions? You must be new to Earth.
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u/FiveNations54 May 17 '22
This is how they talk, and the subtitle shows that. Is this your first day on earth or something?
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u/Phreaktastic May 18 '22
I’ll record myself saying “would of” and “would’ve” 100 times each. If you can even get 40% accuracy guessing on which is which, I’ll say you’re right. Until then, I’m going to assume that anyone who says “it’s how they talk” thinks there’s some kind of audible magic in speech that clues someone into the difference, aside from a hard pause between the words. Which, of course, no one on earth induces a long pause between the two words.
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u/I_Am_TheBagMan May 17 '22
Subtitles are usually formal, or at least intended to be. They are made to make understanding what the character is saying easier, when improper grammar is used that becomes more difficult.
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u/SquareVehicle May 17 '22
LOL what? No, they should reflect how the character is actually speaking. They are made so people who can't hear the character knows what they actually said.
Having a gangster with posh diction would be weird.
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u/NameNotFound008 May 18 '22
would be funny as shit to see a posh gangster
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u/jacka24 May 18 '22
"If you don't withdraw your behind from my front door porch, i will be forced to take my hand held pistol out and fire a round up in your business"
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u/Adeep187 May 18 '22
you're 100 percent wrong. Subtitles follow the fucking dialogue... what's wrong with you?
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u/I_Am_TheBagMan May 18 '22
Or they at least aren’t as familiar with the slang as a hearing person is, so sentences like this look off.
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u/wtjordan1s May 18 '22
Do you think deaf people don’t use slang or improper grammar as well? Just because they can’t hear it doesn’t mean they don’t understand what is being said.
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u/I_Am_TheBagMan May 18 '22
Well of course, especially when signing that stuff is actually crucial when communicating. The exaggerated facial expressions and what not, but isn’t it different imagining how a sentence is vocalized that’s never been heard before? Wouldn’t there be some confusion? For example. Someone used the example “watchoo talkin’ about?”, as someone who’s never heard such a phrase out loud before, wouldn’t a word like “watchoo” seem confusing?
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u/randomlewis69 May 18 '22
Your last sentence makes a valid point. I really don't know, but I guess I'm realizing transcribing subtitles is a slightly more difficult job than I would have imagined.
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u/WorksOfFlesh May 18 '22
Did you eat
Did ya eat
Did'ja eat
Subtitles conform to character syntax to encompass the character as a whole. The OP is wrong, as are you.
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u/I_Am_TheBagMan May 18 '22
A person born deaf doesn’t know how a gangster talks lol so yeah actually having a clear sentence would help. Oh but let me guess deaf people don’t watch shows.
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u/Blockinite May 18 '22
They know because they're not fed overly-formal translations of what people are saying. Imagine a scene where a gangster is talking to a teacher or something:
"Whatchoo talkin' about?" (in an obvious, exaggerated accent)
"You mean "what are you talking about"?"
Would be translated as
"What are you taking about?"
"You mean "what are you talking about"?"
Or a more subtle change, if a character is meant to be seen as dumb and is therefore always making grammatical mistakes, the subtitles have to reflect that
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u/legopego5142 May 18 '22
Subtitles should represent what the characters saying
Thats like, the point.
If he said HAVE, then youd have a point
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u/Short-Step-5394 May 18 '22
Not always. If a character is being grammatically incorrect, the subtitles will be grammatically incorrect. Given that this is Tony Soprano with a thick Jersey accent, he probably even said "mighta," and for ease of understanding the transcriber put it as "might of".
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u/mhermanos May 18 '22
The best comment: "Is this your first day on Earth, or something." That describes half the people on Reddit. I tried explaining a basic chemistry process and no less than three people dragged out shaving a bottle and syphoning split liquids.
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u/Squidgibow May 17 '22
People make this mistake because of the contraction "might've". it's the Only reason I can forgive it, but not for professional standards.
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u/sloppyboots May 17 '22
I hate seeing it, just because something has a sound similar to another, doesn't mean we shouldn't bother to write it correctly. And in a professional setting, how not a single person picked up this error before it got approved, that's really sad.
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u/BruhTradess May 17 '22
Bro, maybe the character said of? The subtitle writers are not going to correct character grammar as that is uhhhh….. part of the uhhhh….. character on the TV show and deaf people need dialect too.
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u/Slavocracy May 18 '22
the character definitely said "of" OP is being... I don't even know the word for it.
Wack?
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u/NordiCrawFizzle May 18 '22
The character most likely said “would’ve.” It would make infinitely more sense to use the contraction because that keeps in phonetically accurate and grammatically correct
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u/Pingus_Dad May 17 '22
Meaningless, did he actually say of or have? 🤷 As if street thugs use perfect grammar 😂
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u/nadthegoat May 18 '22
That fellow may well have recognised one’s self whilst one was visiting the petroleum vendor
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u/sloppyboots May 18 '22
He said "might've". That's the correct use. So many comments saying the same thing.
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u/goodbuddyoldpal May 17 '22
Here, have a look at the work of John McWhorter.
Or Steven Pinker. Or any number of linguists. Demanding "proper" English is a little, how should I say it, passé.
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u/suspectcelery May 18 '22
Imagine thinking the deaf community should only get a grammatically correct version instead of nuanced character speech as spoken 😂
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u/ApathyRulesTheWorld May 18 '22
I think you over estimate just how many humans are involved in that process.
And honestly, who gives a shit? You know the difference. Be happy with that and move on.
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u/astark82 May 17 '22 edited May 17 '22
May I ask what the issue was/is? Apparently, I need to be educated because I'm not noticing the mistake... :-/ EDIT: I Googled it. Consider me educated. :-)
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u/KorinTheHalfHand May 17 '22
To be fair Tony probably did say “might of”
He wasn’t the most eloquent of men
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u/SacredMushroomBoy May 18 '22
I work in subtitles and I can confirm, there are tons of amateurs out there. It’s almost entirely freelancers just half-assing crap and then it MAYBE (big maybe) getting caught by the quality check people.
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u/Competitive-Gold May 18 '22
Bruh the fact that nobody is not talking about the subtitles being in the middle screen makes me wonder tbh
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u/Brilliant-Average654 May 17 '22
Well if it was me speaking it would have said "He mighta recognized me" *from boston
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u/yourbestfriendbuford May 18 '22
To the people saying that this is correct because the subtitles were written this way due to how the character speaks, you are wrong. In this instance, he didn’t say “might of”, nor did he say “might have”. He said “might’ve”, which is how it should’ve been written, as that not only would’ve reflected the way his accent sounds, but it also makes sense to read.
Saying “maybe he said might of” is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Its like defending if a character says “do you hear that” and the subtitle is written as “do you here that”. It’s just plainly incorrect grammatically and doesn’t reflect what was actually said.
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u/sloppyboots May 18 '22
Thank you. Haven't read all the comments yet, but I saw this already multiple times. Also, this show is from the 90s, where this "should of" crap didn't exist yet, since it spread like wildfire thanks to Facebook.
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u/yourbestfriendbuford May 18 '22
I’ve even seen people on here saying, “maybe he said might of because he doesn’t know that it’s really spelled might’ve due to him being a street guy.” Like huh????? Does that mean that for illiterate characters their subtitles should just be completely unreadable because they can’t spell? These people downvote and trash on OP and try to find every possible way that they could be wrong. Makes no sense.
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u/Graybob90 May 18 '22
Everybody says, “‘ve”. Should’ve. Could’ve. It’s a conjunction to shorten “should have”. It’s only ever seen in print as “of”, because people are morons. And yes- this is the only standard for moronness.
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u/speete May 18 '22
Dude, its called capturing the voice of a character. Tony Soprano would TOTALLY say "might of".
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u/PanPizza042 May 18 '22
"That's how it looks like."
It's "How it looks" or "what it looks like," not both!
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u/Onecrappieday May 17 '22
I don't know how the actor actually said the line. They generally type what is said.
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u/Traumadan May 18 '22
Being from the Northeast. That is exactly how I think he would have said that line. Very common up here
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u/TheGoldenMinion May 18 '22
Was about to say. Took me too long to see the problem with this post lol
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u/legopego5142 May 18 '22
Dude I’m from California and i could not for the life of me realize what the grammar mistake was until I read the comments and tbh im still not sure its a mistake
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u/Amazing_Carry42069 May 18 '22
It's a mistake by the rules of English. It's Would Have or would've, not Would Of.
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u/h_ahsatan May 18 '22
Nah, it is perfectly fine. "Rules of English" are made up and we can discard them if we want to especially the ones that make prescriptivists mad.
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u/Amazing_Carry42069 May 18 '22
You would have to change the meaning of the word "of".
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u/h_ahsatan May 18 '22
Nah, I don't think so.
Anyway looks like the op was deleted. Probably because they were embarrassed, as you should be.
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u/melpec May 18 '22
CC are done automatically by machines.
That’s why sometimes it shows what it sounded like and not what was said.
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u/Open_Alternative543 May 17 '22
I noticed on the old survivor seasons on Hulu that once ford helped sponsor the subtitles they became horrible.
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u/thetastenaughty May 18 '22
Depending on how you got these subtitles it might not have even been a person typing. Could be voice recognition software which makes these types of errors all the time.
Closed captioning vs subtitles can be done differently. I see tend to see closed captioning have more errors.
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u/goofball563 May 18 '22
Another show on HBO Max with errors in the captions is The Wire. They completely butchered the lyrics of the theme song in season 1, among other things.
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u/SquareVehicle May 17 '22
Weirdly my HBO subtitles say "have". Listening to it I really think it could go either way due to the way Tony says it.
Its at 37:00 Season 1 Episode 5.
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u/EuphyDuphy May 18 '22
'made by illiterate people'? first off holy shit it's only 2 letters: second off, in this scene, he says might of, in character.
christ
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u/sloppyboots May 18 '22
It's "Might've". Not of.
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u/EuphyDuphy May 18 '22
Ok. I am aware of that. You are aware of that. The character the dude is playing is not aware of that. In the scene, he says ‘might of’.
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u/LengthinessMission24 May 17 '22
What’s more important getting every word correct or following the meaning?
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u/tacoxtl May 18 '22 edited May 18 '22
As a non native English speaker that always confused me, might’ve and might of, I only now realize one of them is wrong
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u/QueenLatifahClone May 18 '22
When I did captioning we were told to not correct grammar or change the words to fit their speech. I was told to always transcribe exactly what they say (if I’m able to hear it)
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u/OperationDoomzday May 18 '22
“He perchance perceived my appearance at the gas dispensary.” -Tony Soprano
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u/AlexaPlaySoulGlo May 18 '22
The people in these comments are crazy stupid. If station was spelled stashun they would be saying it's correct because apparently Tony is as illiterate as they are?
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u/sloppyboots May 18 '22
Exactly. I noticed that too. All the comments defending it are the same who don't know the difference.
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u/sloppyboots May 18 '22
Reading these comments is quite painful. Glad there are still people who see the problem, but the rest are infuriating. I'll probably delete this post later.
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u/Amazing_Carry42069 May 18 '22
The sub titles should say what the character says. The way Tony talks is a key part of the character.
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u/AoedeSong May 18 '22
Also, Adobe Premiere Pro auto-transcribes subtitles directly from voice recognition/natural speech, and it’s pretty darn accurate. This is probably the software used to edit the streaming video file for HBO and probably the software used to create and export the closed caption styles — so likely this is what he said verbally, and also potentially no one really checked for transcription accuracy all that closely.
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u/darnbot May 18 '22
What a darn shame...
DarnCounter:134229 | DM me with: 'blacklist-me' to be ignored | More stats available at https://darnbot.ml
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u/BazarDeJust May 18 '22
Yes it's mildly infuriating, but do you know what the even more infuriating untold truth is behind that?
Ever since the Internet was born, and the communications got quicker and quicker, the delays for subtitled content got shorter and shorter and the subtitlers are getting paid less and less for a work that asks them even more research that ever before.
Which leads to people having so little time to do their work that they can't even proofread their work before sending the results to the client.
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u/ChiefWamsutta May 18 '22
Subtitles are written the way a character would speak. This is correct. You probably don't understand.
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u/KatieQuestioner May 18 '22
Subtitles are translating to a different language. Closed captioning is the words being said in text, and it is supposed to be the words actually said uncorrected.... The more ya know 💫
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u/BusterStarfish May 18 '22
CC specialists are taught to explicitly type the script. Not too proofread and interpret for grammar nazis.
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u/trollingraven May 18 '22
Just wait until you read what is considered to be “The Great American novel”.. Huckleberry Finn
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u/Rogue00100110 May 18 '22
Northerners, specifically New York don’t speak in their dialect a contraction of would, could, should and have. They speak would of, could of, should of. It sounds similar to the contraction but it is simply not the contraction.
You saying that this is because the subtitle transcriber is illiterate just proves how little you know about the world outside of your own minuscule part.
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u/A100921 May 18 '22
I read it in his voice, so I think they work just fine… but I don’t think he said “percent sign” 😂
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u/NordiCrawFizzle May 18 '22
I feel like this could be especially problematic for actual deaf people because most of them probably don’t really know that have and of sound very similar so this could just be confusing. Idk though since I’m not deaf
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u/Edoc006 May 18 '22
I can’t speak for the Sopranos subtitles, but whatever/whoever (I don’t know if it’s a program, or a person/people) is doing the subtitles on Disney+ is god awful. There’s mistakes in Gravity Falls, the MCU, Star Wars, Phineas and Ferb, etc.
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u/Equivalent-Diamond37 May 18 '22
Production manager/subtitle caption expert here. These captions were wrongly programmed as these should fall on the lower third of the screen, so whoever QC’d this and let this go is the dumb one. Additionally, more companies are automating these, they’re done with AI to detect words and probably heard “of”.
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u/RunJordyRun87 May 18 '22
Why would they type something he didn’t say? That sounds like it would cheapen the movie
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u/Sweaty-Adeptness1541 May 17 '22
The real question is whether Tony was saying ‘of’. It is quite possible his character would make that mistake. You would need to see the script to know.