English FAIL Blog

Fire makes me hot!

Wow, did they really put that on TV? That can’t be true

Actually, ridiculous and blatant errors in closed captioning are extremely common - even in taped programs with weeks of post-production to get the captions right. On news broadcasts, the captions are typed live; it’s typical to see the captioner(s) deleting words and trying again. The caption machines have auto-complete for longer words, and a lot of the typists use it. However, ordinarily small typos can become very important when “corrected” to similarly spelled but radically different words. “Evacuating” to “ejaculating” is an entirely believable typo even on a post-produced taped show. For a live news broadcast, that might not have even been the most egregious typo of the show.

Anybody listen to the Beatles? “Why don’t we do it in the road”?

Uhh …. I don’t think that’s the way you put out a fire.

That might be the best englishfail I’ve seen on here yet.

A lot of the “closed captions” used on the news are not actually scripted. They use voice recognition software to put up the text on screen live as it is being said. It is generally accurate but does sometimes produce errors, as in this case.

Firefighters care when people in the middle of the road talk suddenly and vehemently?

Was it some kind of flaming vagina?

Can we just go ahead and make this one the all time funniest fail?

Holy God, I wish I could have seen that. Actually, I wish I could have seen, DVRed, and shown all my friends that.

This is quite possibly the best one yet!

I’m hard of hearing and use close captioning all the time. I’ve stopped watching TV news because the captioning is quite bad for real-time shows. The voice recognition software is poor, and human transcriptionists can’t keep up. One notable error: “President Bush” was transcribed as “blow fish”.

Jason, perhaps you should look up the definition of the word ejaculating.. whilst you’re at it also look up semen, orgasm and sexual intercourse.

LOL Judas. I thought of that, too.

this one is totally my favorite. i had to show it to everyone i know.

The picture on the left just makes all the funnier

Actually, ejaculating can mean either ‘exclaiming loudly’, or the other, more obvious sexual meaning. It is seldom used any more, in the same way we don’t call roosters cocks and donkeys asses. I think the English language is the easiest to screw up, because it has many rules with endless exceptions.

Either way, this is pretty hilarious

lmao!

Def Leppard’s song coming under fire.

Then in Foolin’

It says the flames have died and the fire is gone.

Actually, closed captions for live shows (news, etc.) are created either by steno machine writers or with voice recognition (not as prevalent). Steno writers write by phonetics, and even the best steno writers make the occasional mistakes. This one, if you know steno, is very easy to understand. The steno (phonetically) for “evacuating” is E/VAK/YAIGT (written out long, and the “-ing” suffix is in the last stroke as “G”). It’s very easy to write a “J” for the “V” in the second stroke. That’s how you get the “ejaculating” instead of “evacuating.”

If it was voice recognition, then it’s not as easy to explain. The “J” sound is very harsh compared to the “V” sound. I guess they could have misspoke it. But I bet this was a steno captioner.

Believe it or not, it is - I remember actually seeing this once on a TV at the gym I go to. I just managed to read it before the subtitles changed, and I was like “… Did I just read that right?”

EPIC FAIL, on so many levels…

Wow. You fail at your knowledge of the captioning process. There is not a single captioning company that would ever — EVER — use voice recognition for a live broadcast. All live news feeds are captioned by court reporters on steno machines. Every. Single. One.

Sincerely,
10-year captioner.

I imagine blasting them with the hoses should make them scatter.

Hall Monitor
http://detentionslip.org

The CBS affiliate that I used to work for… the scripts read by each of the reporters WAS the closed-caption feed… so the HUMAN REPORTER… wrote the story to fit the time they had for their live segements… and the CLOSED CAPTION was sent out as they turned their tele-prompter. FYI. :o) — tooooooo funny though

Closed captioning fails aren’t hard to find, but this one is great.

Well, you know when I see a large fire, I can’t resist jerkin’ the gherkin, even if it’s in the middle of the road.

I’m subscribing!

Ohhh, FIRE! It turns me ON!

God, that is just hilarious. I wonder how that mistake happened…
>_>
<_<

XD

Maybe YOU ought to look up the meaning of “ejaculation”. It has two.

wow way to ruin a great fail…we dont need your lecture to see this…dumbass

Hello everyone! my name is Tyler. if you have a problem with Closed Captioning contract us. We will help you fixing Closed Captioning. Thank you.

LOL this reminds me of the time that I was in NYC with my mom, sister, 2 aunts and cousin for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. There was a huge screen showing what the news cameras were capturing and it was Harry Connick, Jr. singing “My Favorite Things.” There was closed captioning on the screen and the verse was supposed to be “rain drops on roses” but instead they typed “rape drops on roses.” We could not stop laughing about that! I love mistakes in CC.

SOMEBODY was given a rough time at the Closed-Captioning Station for this…

But this is the truth. Watch a live television program and turn on the captions. There are tons of errors.

This is why firefighters are so damn amazing….what a job!!

Oh my…

…epic fail…I think…

Whay wud ppl be jacking off in the middle of the road???

Actually, it is mostly court reporters/stenographers who are doing the captioning

Not long ago in a news report about Fidel Castro he was called “the Cuban dick tater.
Just yesterday on Fox News Hillary Clinton was said to be “the second scary of state.” Freudian slip?