Dear Readers:
Transcription can be a tricky business. As is now widely reported, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was recently “in the hospital for an enlarged prostitute.”
According to Lloyd Grove of the Washington Post, this malapropism was the result of faulty transcription by those who provide the closed caption service to ABC news.
“We strive for perfection,” ABC’s Cathie Levine told Grove. “but when you’re typing that fast, there are occasional mistakes. We regret the error.”
Greenspan’s wife, NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell, said of her husband’s “enlarged prostitute”: “He should be so lucky.”
A much more common mistake, of course, is the confusion of the word “prostate” and “prostrate,” an error made famous on television by both Archie Bunker and Andy Sipowicz.
The prostate, of course, is the precious gland that determines whether men are coming or going. It derives from a Greek word meaning “to cause to stand in front.” Hmmm.
The word prostrate, thus, is almost an antonym for prostate. It derives from the Latin for “lie down, stretch out.”
Between prostate and prostrate in the dictionary is “prostitute,” which has a different etymology from its neighbors. The prefix “pro” is the Latin for “in public.” The second comes from “statuere,” to stand like a statue.
Doc’s favorite transcription error is one he helped create. Years ago, he delivered a speech in which he quoted the opening line of “Moby Dick”: “Call me Ishmael.” The poor transcriber must not have been up on his or her American Lit, so, after what must have been quite a struggle, settled for this transcription: “Call me a schmuck.”
Doc is out for now. As Jimi Hendrix never said: “’Scuse me while I kiss this guy!”
[ Do you have a favorite malapropism or transcription error? ]
