Stuff that's not in the style guide

Discussion in 'CastingWords' started by electricaltill, Sep 17, 2013.

  1. electricaltill

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    AKA The Rarest Situations Supplement

    I don't know about any others here, but I have submitted a ton of tickets to support over the last couple of years with various points I wasn't sure about that weren't covered specifically by the style guide.

    It just occurred to me it could be super useful to collect the support responses we've had from CW, that might help resolve confusion for everybody (including me - when I'm transcribing for them regularly I usually submit a ticket every couple of days, at a minimum).

    Here's some of the responses I got. Post yours too!

    Capitalize deities?
    This concerned the Christian "God," which should be capitalized. Relevant pronouns like "him," "his" and "he" are also capitalized.

    A speaker's first name is an initial - e.g. J. Andrew Smith. How are they labeled after the first instance?
    The initial, and the next name, without the period/full stop (apparently it can cause problems with the labels). So "J Andrew," in this case.

    "wifi," "wi-fi," "WiFi," or none of the above?
    "WiFi."

    Software versions - numbers or words? "Version 2," "version two," "v2" or something else?
    If it's tech-heavy, then "v2" is fine. If just mentioned once, then "version 2." Mike@ CW wasn't concerned about capitalization (i.e. "v2" or "V2") as long as the transcript is consistant.

    Odd money amount combinations. For instance, if some audio, transcribed verbatim, would read: "I need 10, 20 thousand pounds more." Should both be transcribed as full amounts, or should the abbreviated form be used in the first case, or should it be some combination?
    Mike@CW suggested "I need 10, £20,000 more" would be best, but went on to say that if it's not a verbatim transcript, "I need £20,000 more" is fine.

    Non-dollar/pound currencies. Can their symbols be used?
    Mike@CW: Yes, using "€" is preferred over spelling out "euro". Same applies to yen/¥, yuan/元, etc.

    Times (of day): transcribe as words, or convert to a standard format like we do with dates? Also, would (for instance) "quarter to five" be transcribed as 4:45 or kept as words?
    Keep as words, unless (my presumption) the style guide requires numerals - i.e. double figure times.

    "Alright." It's not a word, but does CW disagree?
    They don't disagree. "Alright" is not a word. Don't use it in transcripts!

    Ordinal numbers. Do they follow the same style as regular numbers? i.e. "ninth, 10th"?
    Yes.

    Website URLs - are they capitalized if a speaker says them mid-sentence? i.e. "I did a web search on Google.com," or "I did a web search on google.com"?
    Mike@CW: All given URLs should be lowercase.

    Keyboard keys - quotes or any other special treatment? i.e. "Press the 'Return' key"?
    Capitalize, but don't put them in quotes.

    Key combinations - how should they be transcribed? e.g. "Ctrl+C" or "Ctrl-C"
    Ctrl+C is correct. Again, no quotes needed.

    More coming later!
     
    #1 electricaltill, Sep 17, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 23, 2013
  2. electricaltill

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    Doctor or Dr.?
    Dr. Both in the transcript itself, and speaker labels. "Unless there is some compelling reason not to," says Nathan@CW.

    Should job titles be capitalized?
    I was recommended to refer to these rules when deciding whether to capitalize people's job titles: http://data.grammarbook.com/blog/capitalization/capitalization-with-job-titles/

    If the speaker dictates their own punctuation, should this be used only?
    I have only encountered this once so far, but after much conferring with CW, we agreed I should transcribe their punctuation but add my own for readability as well. Mostly because their punctuation was very patchy, and would have resulted in paragraphs hundreds of words wrong, with almost no commas or full stops/periods.

    When transcribing names/numbers of laws, etc, should numbers or words be used? E.g. ""Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights" or ""Article Seven of the European Convention on Human Rights"?
    Use the official version - i.e. in this case find the article in question, and use the form there. More often than not, numbers are used, not words.

    That's all I've got for now. Please add your own!
     
  3. electricaltill

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    Missed one out.

    "etc." or "et cetera"?
    "etcetera."
     
  4. pwt

    pwt User

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    ****. Really?
     
  5. electricaltill

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    Heh. Afraid so. I didn't think that would be a possibility either, and I'd been doing it "wrong" for the whole time until I asked.
     
  6. transgal

    transgal Member

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    Very helpful for someone new to CW. Thank you.
     

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