Being hard of hearing is most likely difficult enough as it is. So, you can imagine the anger of some BBC viewers when errors in the live captions started talking about “pigs nibbling on willies”, instead of wellies, and spoke of “a moment’s violence”, instead of silence, at the Queen Mother’s funeral.

If you thought that was misleading, in another broadcast a BBC announcer said “government making holes for surgeons” instead of “making helpful decisions.” And, last week, the subtitles left deaf rugby fans confused, thinking that the Welsh side were playing “Island” instead of “Ireland” in the Rugby World Cup.

Reportedly, the mistakes happen so often that a website has even been dedicated to them.

The problems come from incidents where speech recognition is used. Basically, someone talks into a microphone while listening to the broadcast, and a computer recognises their words. This can lead to the use of homonyms, with a decidedly different meaning.

The frequent mistakes in the corporation’s live subtitling have now come under scrutiny from deaf groups. Emma Harrison, Action on Hearing Loss’s Director of Public Engagement said she receives regular complaints about the errors. She also stresses how important television access is for deaf people.

The BBC responding by saying, “We recognise that subtitling is a hugely important service, and we endeavour to ensure it is as accurate as possible. There are occasions, particularly during live broadcasts, when mistakes will happen but we do all we can to keep this to a minimum and are constantly striving to improve accuracy.”‬

Sounds like a cop-out, BBC.

You stay classy, Cape Town.

[Source: telegraph]