Is the world’s biggest newspaper website cutting corners by using voice recognition software to transcribe quotes?
One of my moles certainly thinks so after spotting this recent story – headlined “‘Kazakhstan’s prostitutes cleanest in the region’: Shocking blunder as Borat’s mock national anthem is played out at medal ceremony”.
Mail Online reported:
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Instead of ‘Sky of golden sun’ and ’steppe of golden seed,’ the audience at the Kuwait medal ceremony were told that ‘Kazakhstan [is the] greatest country in the world,’ and that ‘All other countries are run by little girls.’
As well as the lyrics played out stating that Kazakhstan has the best potassium, it also told how Kazakh prostitutes are the ‘cleanest in region, except of course for too many scars.’
Now as any Borat fan knows, the words underlined should read Turkmenistan. But instead appear as “too many scars”.
My mole reckons it is a problem caused by using voice recognition software Dragon, which tends to approximate unusual names into English and does not spellcheck underline them. According to my source he knows, because he takes the same short cuts!
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