Tripping Tongues

Sometimes a blog post writes itself, like a text morphing through autocorrect to become delicious non sequitur poetry. Some years ago, Doc and Dopey were texting back and forth and at one point the algorithm changed “noise reduction” to “mouse reduction.” Immediately the duo crafted a delightful little ditty by that title and recorded a demo on a cellphone, probably never to revisit it for a proper recording or allow it to see the light of day. Too bad. You’re missing a good one.

Pinky Tourette here, distinguished English linguist and your guide through the vaults of Tourettedom. Today’s topic is language. In case you’re unfamiliar, it’s how people used to communicate before emojis.

Not that I’m knocking technology’s war on language. In fact, I embrace it. Back in those dimly remembered days when VHS was the peak of human technological advancement, Dopey used to corral us around the flickering screen to share her newest eye-popping video find from the depths of some basement Chinatown rental store. And while the insane plots, action, and violence were truly noggin-knocking spectacular, the mangled subtitles added even more otherworldly appeal to the proceedings.

Nowadays that role has been replaced by closed captioning on TV. If you’re not using it, you’re missing half the charm of television. Especially live TV. The kind that uses stenography software to near-instantaneously translate spoken conversation to something vaguely resembling English. My favorite recent example happened when someone mentioned Burt Bacharach. In the captions, he became Burnt Back Iraq.

How brilliant is that? Absolute genius. AI is definitely taking over. No human could have come up with that. I bow to the machine masters.

In another prime example of linguistic crimes, you may have heard that Fetty Wap was arrested in Newark Airport. I’m going to quote extensively from two sources that wrote about the incident, perhaps opening myself up to charges of copyright infringement. No matter; it’s worth it.

First is TMZ.com. They wrote a straightforward article. Second is from the Florida News Times, by a “writer” going by “nabilspence.” It reads, as you’ll see, like the first article translated (poorly) into a foreign language, then retranslated (poorerly) back to English. Examples:

ARTICLE ONE (TMZ): “Law enforcement sources tell TMZ Fetty was at Newark Liberty airport Friday, when for whatever reason, cops got an alert about his ankle monitor. We're told after officers spoke to FW and ran his info, they discovered he had a warrant out for his arrest.”

ARTICLE TWO (FNT): “According to law enforcement sources, TMZ Fetti was at Newark Liberty Airport on Friday, but for some reason police officers were warned about his ankle monitor. They are alleged to have discovered that he had an arrest warrant after police officers spoke to the forward and carried out his information.”

ONE: “Details about the warrant aren't exactly clear, but we know it was for public nuisance out of North Bergen, NJ.”

TWO: “The details of the warrant are not clear, but it is known to be due to pollution from North Bergen, NJ.”

ONE: “It's not the first run-in Fetty's had with the law lately, he was taken in by the FBI back in October. The feds claimed Fetty and his associates helped to distribute over 100 kilograms of cocaine, heroin, fentanyl and crack cocaine across Long Island and New Jersey.”

TWO: “This is not the first break-in that Fetti recently violated the law, he Incorporated into the FBI I returned in October. The federal government claimed to have helped Fetti and his associates distribute over 100 kilograms of cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, and crack cocaine throughout Long Island and New Jersey.”

I’m sure Fetty was deeply grateful to the federal government for their assistance in distributing his hefty stash. Incidentally, several articles since this one have repeated the allegation that his warrant was for “pollution.” This is how the misinformation machine gets rolling. One idiot snowball turns into a giant asshole avalanche.

The second article was entertaining enough that I looked up the Florida News Times online. Turns out it’s a news aggregation site with several “writers” exhibiting the same shall-we-say “loose” command of English. Among the headline highlights for nabilspence alone:

• “Black China tears unvaccinated travelers selfish and wants vaccination obligations”

• “’RHOA’ NeNe Leakes had no plans for Christmas with BF and initially had no late husband”

• “MN police officer Kim Potter shouts at the stand, explains the shooting, and kills Dante Wright”

• “James Franco’s ‘confession’ was accused of being a victim’s lawyer”

• “Mariah Carey’s ‘Only You Want Christmas’ Breaks 1 Billion Streaming Record”

I have passed along to Doc and Dopey the title “Only You Want Christmas” in the hopes that they’ll write the tune. Great name, and apparently it’ll be very popular.