As I've mentioned recently (and not so recently), I'm not always sure of the best way to transcribe speech. A couple of people responded positively to my suggestion that a few of us try the same passages and compare what we wind up with -- which wee corrections to make silently, which to mark with editorial square brackets, and which vocal quirks / possible mistakes / dialect cues to let stand; where to bother to add emphasis in the text; and the part that I find most tricky: when to insert a period versus semicolon, colon, or em-dash.
So here are the ones I've transcribed that I happen to still have the recordings of handy, with all the words (as I heard them) in the right order, but no other markup except to show when I couldn't make out a word or phrase, along with links to short MP3 files, so those of you who feel like it can add your own punctuation and fixups without having to the getting-all-the-words part from scratch. (Do point out errors you catch in my transcriptions, of course.) On a couple of them, the recording includes a little more than what I've transcribed.
Pick as many or as few as you feel like taking a whack at. These are three clips that I plan to stick into the quote-of-the-day queue, and two that I've already used (in case you want to compare your version to mine right away). Differences in accent, speaking speed, and emotional intensity make some much easier than others...
Kat Von D, 2009-03-23 (MP3, 18 sec., 288 KB):
a lot of people like have like the misconception that you know um I want everybody to look like me or whatever but I think y'know if you want to get tattooed go for it but I love the fact that there is diversity you know I think um I appreciate like a body with no tattoos at all just as much as I do full body tattoos
Michael Bloomberg, 2009-03-22 (MP3, 42 sec., 672 KB), already used as a QotD 2009-03-23:
the president can't worry about what's politically popular he's been elected to be the president of the United States and he's taking on the tough issues right now he's not going to be popular every one of these issues are contentious otherwise we would have solved those problems a long time ago what he should do is go out there and say I was elected to lead from the front not from the back and do that and the American public isn't stupid the American public even when they don't like what you do if they think you're doing it fromn the heart if they think you've got good ideas if they think you've consulted and tried to build a consensus and work with people in a nonpartisan way they're gonna come behind him maybe not day one but he's gotta build a legacy and he's gotta start right now and I think he's starting to do it
Condoleeza Rice, 2009-03-24 (MP3, 50 sec., 792 KB):
[Jay Leno] did we squander that opportunity at nine eleven it seemed like we had the whole world on our side everybody was uh not feeling sorry, but certainly everybody was compassionate for America and then it seems in the last five years it seems like there's so much hostility toward us
[Condoleeza Rice] well we had to do some really hard things it's it's not easy to fight terrorism I'll tell you something for those of us who were there on September eleventh to watch Americans jump out of eighty story windows as the twin towers went down every day after was September twelfth and because of that you do think of the world differently and uh you're determined not to let that happen again and that means that you do some unpopular things
Craig Ferguson, 2009-03-25 (MP3, 60 sec., 952 KB):
I think we should forget bailin' these people out now I think we [???] throwing them all in jail take all the people what stole the money don't bail 'em out throw 'em in jail and I'll tell you why 'cause once we give 'em the money they'll do it again see we need to get rid of 'em they will do it again let me give you an analogy [?then maybe?] you might understand imagine you're a young pop singer on the way to an awards ceremony and your boyfriend in the car beats the crap out of you on the way but you go back with him because he says he won't do it again well he's gonna do it again so you need to get rid of him and these guys who steal money they're gonna do it again let us make 2009 the year when we get rid of all the douchebags all the douchebags the ones who steal the money the ones who hit the women just all all of 'em I think I've said douchebag too much now I have [breath] then my job here is finished
Craig Ferguson, 2009-03-13 (MP3, 38 sec., 608 KB), already used as a QotD 2009-03-13:
remember in that movie ah Wall Street uh Michael Douglas said greed is good it's not it's not good it's not even good if you're an out and out capitalist which I am greed is not capitalism greed is the enemy of capitalism the money has to move around that's capitalism the money comes it goes it comes it goes if if one bastard's just sitting going this is all mine that's not capitalism douche
I tried to get every word, including the ones I usually filter out unconsciously (like, y'know, the third 'like' in, uh, the same, like, clause, y'know?), which turned out to make transcribing noticeably more difficult. (Wait, was that 'uh' that I almost failed to notice before or after the preposition? Rewind yet again ...)
I look forward to seeing how others' renderings of these passages differ from my own.
And yes, my posting to LJ at this hour does mean that my sleep cycle remains messed-up. (I actually slept nearly until dusk yesterday, waking several times from dreams or pain but falling asleep again quickly, but then (gosh, what a shock) being unable to fall asleep at a normal hour last night ... or at all so far this morning, though I'll try again after I post this and grab a wee snack.) Still working on getting to the point that I can cope with grocery shopping -- this evening looks possible, if I can squeeze in a little sleep between now and then.
Some of the dreams were really strange. I was also sweating a whole lot despite the bedroom being cold, so maybe I had a fever part of the time?
I'm hopelessly behind on my friendslist reading.