Comments on: The Eloquent Silence of Two Hands Flapping http://johnesimpson.com/blog/2008/11/the-eloquent-silence-of-two-hands-flapping/ Ridiculous Pursuits, Solemn Matters Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:51:26 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast » Blog Archive » 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks #89: Featuring Jeffrey Palmer http://johnesimpson.com/blog/2008/11/the-eloquent-silence-of-two-hands-flapping/comment-page-1/#comment-1332 Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast » Blog Archive » 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks #89: Featuring Jeffrey Palmer Sun, 16 Nov 2008 06:18:02 +0000 http://johnesimpson.com/blog/?p=1847#comment-1332 [...] A comment I left inspired a post about ASL over at JES’ (John’s) blog. How neat is that? And John found a lovely ASL poem [...] [...] A comment I left inspired a post about ASL over at JES’ (John’s) blog. How neat is that? And John found a lovely ASL poem [...]

]]> By: John http://johnesimpson.com/blog/2008/11/the-eloquent-silence-of-two-hands-flapping/comment-page-1/#comment-1310 John Sat, 15 Nov 2008 12:52:04 +0000 http://johnesimpson.com/blog/?p=1847#comment-1310 Jules: Oh yeah. Not much with DVDs, but often with VHS and with TV/cable itself. It's got something to do with the way the captioning track is carried on the underlying medium. Because tape is much less stable than disk -- it stretches, wobbles, flutters -- captions frequently come out looking like they'd been recorded on spaghetti. :) With plain-old TV, broadcast, satellite, or even cable, you've got a huge distance (digitally speaking) over which the signal can suffer interference, from the point of transmission to the set itself. Less often, there are well-functioning captions which one might prefer to do away with altogether. E.g. <a href="http://fljerseyboy.blogspot.com/2007/11/krazy-kaptioning-part-1-macys-parade.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">inane musical lyrics</a>. Jules: Oh yeah. Not much with DVDs, but often with VHS and with TV/cable itself. It’s got something to do with the way the captioning track is carried on the underlying medium. Because tape is much less stable than disk — it stretches, wobbles, flutters — captions frequently come out looking like they’d been recorded on spaghetti. :)

With plain-old TV, broadcast, satellite, or even cable, you’ve got a huge distance (digitally speaking) over which the signal can suffer interference, from the point of transmission to the set itself.

Less often, there are well-functioning captions which one might prefer to do away with altogether. E.g. inane musical lyrics.

]]> By: Jules http://johnesimpson.com/blog/2008/11/the-eloquent-silence-of-two-hands-flapping/comment-page-1/#comment-1301 Jules Sat, 15 Nov 2008 04:19:22 +0000 http://johnesimpson.com/blog/?p=1847#comment-1301 Don't captions usually get bungled pretty badly, while subtitles are super reliable? Don’t captions usually get bungled pretty badly, while subtitles are super reliable?

]]> By: John http://johnesimpson.com/blog/2008/11/the-eloquent-silence-of-two-hands-flapping/comment-page-1/#comment-1277 John Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:18:41 +0000 http://johnesimpson.com/blog/?p=1847#comment-1277 Jules: On a related but tamer note, people are also surprised at the difference between closed captions (the word-for-word transcript) and subtitles (more like the complete script, including sound effects and musical notes and such). One of the first subtitled TV programs The Missus and I watched was <em>The X-Files</em>. At a particularly suspenseful moment --of course, in the dark! -- in one episode, Scully was by herself looking for, well, something. All of a sudden there was the subtitle: <p style="text-align: center; font-family: Courier New, Courier, mono;">[dripping]</p> Startled, I looked at The Missus. "Did you hear that?" "No," she confirmed -- it had been inaudible to her, too. Made such a difference! I'm still amazed by what sort of diverse mental faculties must be called into play, allatonce, in order for someone to do ASL at either the sending or receiving end. Jules: On a related but tamer note, people are also surprised at the difference between closed captions (the word-for-word transcript) and subtitles (more like the complete script, including sound effects and musical notes and such). One of the first subtitled TV programs The Missus and I watched was The X-Files. At a particularly suspenseful moment –of course, in the dark! — in one episode, Scully was by herself looking for, well, something. All of a sudden there was the subtitle:

[dripping]

Startled, I looked at The Missus. “Did you hear that?”

“No,” she confirmed — it had been inaudible to her, too. Made such a difference!

I’m still amazed by what sort of diverse mental faculties must be called into play, allatonce, in order for someone to do ASL at either the sending or receiving end.

]]> By: Jules http://johnesimpson.com/blog/2008/11/the-eloquent-silence-of-two-hands-flapping/comment-page-1/#comment-1273 Jules Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:53:36 +0000 http://johnesimpson.com/blog/?p=1847#comment-1273 My God, that was great. Is there anything more beautiful than ASL poetry? My God, that was great. Is there anything more beautiful than ASL poetry?

]]> By: Jules http://johnesimpson.com/blog/2008/11/the-eloquent-silence-of-two-hands-flapping/comment-page-1/#comment-1272 Jules Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:46:00 +0000 http://johnesimpson.com/blog/?p=1847#comment-1272 See what I get for being behind on blog-reading? I am just now seeing this. ASL is fascinating. And beautiful. And complicated. And hard as hell to learn. It's funny to me that a lot of people I meet *still* think that signing must be easy, that there's an equivalent sign for every word, that signers are signing word-for-word what is said. In Signing Exact English, yes, but not ASL. If only it were that easy. Now I'm off to watch that second video, which I don't think I've seen. Thanks! See what I get for being behind on blog-reading? I am just now seeing this.

ASL is fascinating. And beautiful. And complicated. And hard as hell to learn. It’s funny to me that a lot of people I meet *still* think that signing must be easy, that there’s an equivalent sign for every word, that signers are signing word-for-word what is said. In Signing Exact English, yes, but not ASL. If only it were that easy.

Now I’m off to watch that second video, which I don’t think I’ve seen. Thanks!

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