Polishing turds and other travails of a subtitler...

It is often said that you cannot polish a turd, but I beg to differ.

In fact it is my job to polish language-related turds. Now you may want to know what a language-related turd looks like, in case one floats across your computer screen, but are too afraid to ask. Fear not I'll tell you...

But first a bit of background. I'm a language practitioner with more than 20 years experience ... no I'm NOT a linguist!

A linguist is someone who studies the mechanics or structure of a language. They need not even to understand or speak the language itself.

This would allow the renowned linguist Noam Chomsky to conclude that Afrikaans is the most sophisticated language in the world.

Sophisticated in the sense of being sleek, fast and effective ... like a Ferrari.

Structure and the mechanics of language are what turn linguists on. Just give your average linguist an organigram of the structure of deep-south Urdu and he'll get a happy glaze in his eye and excuse himself with a slightly guilty grin and disappear into the toilet while clutching it .

Language practitioners on the other hand, are the people who make sure language stays on the road it was intended to take. In other words, they make sure that other people say what they wanted to say correctly and clearly and in most cases better than what said other people could've said it themselves.

There is another branch of dealing with language and that is the grammarian. I honestly don't know what grammarians do except that it has got something to do with grammar. I also honestly don't know what they do for kicks ... or even if they do anything for kicks.

But back to polishing turds. In my line the most common turd I have to polish is what I would call the wafflers. They use many words to say virtually nothing. Here is an example: "Well, you know the problem was with the wheel... if I remember correctly, it was the front left wheel, but it could've also been the wheel on the roof, I mean the spare wheel. But the real problem was communication. Well, you know nobody communicated anything to anybody and you know communication is very important in situations like that. You know, I mean communication is very important full stop, but as I was saying you know, well there was then this communication problem with there being no communication about the wheel, I mean about the problem with the wheel....." And so on ad nauseum.

Now how to put that in a maximum of 80 characters? "Easy!" I can already hear you saying that. "There was a problem with communication about either the front left wheel or the spare wheel." Voila! Turd polished!

But you don't know the waffler.

His next utterance would almost certainly be: "But you know communication was not the real issue there. The problem was really that we had no spare wheel and you know...."

Surprisingly, wafflers are mostly men, which brings me to swallowers who are mostly women.

The swallower speaks in half sentences like this: "We were on our way to ... when Sally said she must ... then we stop and she ... but later we got ... and when we got ... the shops I mean."

I can go on and on, as is the people to whom I listen's wont, but that is enough. Okay that one was really easy to polish: "We were on our way to the shops when Sally said she had to stop and we got there later."

There are some turds that you can't polish. Those are when the people you have to transcribe speaks utter shit clearly but remain incomprehensible. Just listen closely to most politicians and you'll know what I'm on about. I just transcribe them as is ... and recommend that they be cut out completely.

Polishing turds is unfortunately just one of my travails. I have many.

The thing that I hate most in life is waiting. I can easily sit in a bar all afternoon and vacantly stare into space without being the least bit bothered, but if I sit in a bar waiting for someone, 15 minutes becomes an eternity.

At Clive Morris Productions I wait a lot ... knowing that each passing moment means that I would have to rush at another time and in my job rushing means fucking up. I wait for movies, I wait for scripts and I wait for people... I wait for THE VIEWING.

Just this morning I wait four hours for my last two jobs of the week, knowing that I would have to rush them in time for THE VIEWING... That they are the two biggest jobs of the week does not concern me at all ... I can't be bothered less.

No Sirree ... I take everything in my stride as I sit in the courtyard smoking one cigarette at a time and watching the minutes tick by as I light the next one...

While I wait I may just as well introduce you to some of my other close colleagues. You already know the three darkies in my office, the erudite Mr Zee, Fortunate and Ntoks as well as my long-suffering boss Charles Moore. I once remarked that in the long-suffering stakes at CMP only Charles beats me. Every problem, including mine, is his.

Now I'm ready to introduce Natalia and Megan. Natalia is the Line Producer, apparently meaning that she has to sign the whole thing off each week ... not a job that I want because my problems are hers too. Megan is the Content Producer meaning that she has to fill the show with interesting stuff each week ... not a job that I want either.

I like all aspects of my job and love my colleagues dearly, except during THE VIEWING. There is a reason why I write THE VIEWING as if it was the title of a B-grade horror or porn movie.

The Viewing happens once a week and then Charles, Megan, Natalia, the big boss Clive and the equally long-suffering editor Louise have the opportunity to display their prowess at subtitling.

My dearest Megan turns into Mean Hawk-eye Meg and good on her too for that.

Like any language practitioner I need a proper proofreader and I also need the ears of as many people as would care to hear the parts of the swallowed sentences that I could not. When I get the movies they are in 'rough cut' and the sound is of a variable quality. The fact that the darkies sometimes get loudly expressive of their joyful emotions behind me does not help my cause either.

I like my subtitles to be perfect and need all the help I can get, but they behave horrendously.

Clearly not knowing that each error spotted is a dagger to my heart, they would exacerbate my pain by sighing loudly, rolling their eyes in an exaggerated fashion, throwing their hands in the air and renting their clothes at each typo that I made in a rush to be in time for The Viewing... forgetting that I waited a long time for the job to arrive... and had to rush it.

That was until I crapped on them about it and intimated that I would resign about it. Remember my blog about shit and fighting it off to create space for the good stuff...

Now everybody is behaving in an exemplary fashion, but my pain at each error I made and spotted during the viewing remains... but it is not half as bad as my pain when I spot an error missed during The Viewing when the show is aired.

Then I sigh loudly, roll my eyes in an exaggerated fashion, throw my hands in the air and rent my clothes...

I have never seen the 50/50 show ... I only watch the subtitles but you should try and catch the insert about seal clubbing in Namibia on youtube or wherever you can. It is truly horrendous and should be stopped. I'm not an activist but it was heart-rendering to watch. IT SHOULD BE STOPPED and I beseech all three of my readers to try and do something to get it stopped.

Meanwhile my sister Emily is fortunately back and the dogs moved out ... but they move back in as soon as she goes out ... to the great consternation of the damn cat Schmiegel. Tonight Emily was out and the dogs moved in and the damn cat Schmiegel finally settled down ... on my shoulder ... to complain ... in my ear ... which she also likes to lick and bite when she thinks I'm not paying attention ... which is often.