Thursday 27 September 2012

Be A Dictator

I'm currently transcribing useful quotes from Alan Plater's Beiderbecke Trilogy for a paper on representations of jazz in popular fiction - including John Crace's All That Follows and Jackie Kay's Trumpet.

I'm trying to use the new dictation software built into Apple's Mountain Lion software. I don't know if it's my weird voice, nasal tones or mixed-up accent, but the results are, well, mixed. Take this sentence:

The sound of Beiderbecke’s plain comet Barnstable near understrapper was given iPhone a conducted tour of his record child
It's like having a computer designed by James Joyce. The actual sentence is:
The sound of Beiderbecke's plaintive cornet danced upon the air and Trevor was giving Ivan a conducted tour of his record shelves.
Bloody thing. It recognises 'Beiderbecke' but not 'Trevor'? Anyone else having problems with it?

4 comments:

Lee HW said...

For me, it only works if I imitate Stephen Fry, or if I wear my iPhone earphones, plugged into my MacBook, so that the mic is very near my mouth. Even so, when it falls over, it's the simplest words that trip it.

The Plashing Vole said...

I'm speaking to it as a VIctorian tourist would address a native. Slowly, loudly and patronisingly.

Newton Heath 18 said...

I once saw on tv subtitles, which uses similar software, a report on a house fire where Arsene was suspected.

The Plashing Vole said...

I knew there was something dodgy about that guy. Though he's hardly set Highgate on fire!