Why are there mistakes in live captioning?
TV programs that are broadcast live are also captioned live, which is called realtime captioning. In order to keep up with the speed of speech, realtime captioners use a stenotype machine rather than a regular keyboard. They type in shorthand, using combinations of keystrokes that represent sounds rather than individual letters. Computer software then translates the keystrokes into full words. This software references a huge dictionary of both general words and specific terms such as proper names, sports vocabulary, and vocabulary related to current events. Realtime writers constantly update their dictionaries with new words, but there will always be new names that must be spelled out phonetically. If a keystroke is entered incorrectly, the software will expand it out into a different word. More often, though, the sound was typed in correctly, but the software mistranslates it into a homophone, such as “reign” instead of “rain.” These mistranslations, while sometimes humorous, are comp
