Welcome to Fun Word Friday!
Here are some of our favorites – and we’ll post more each week!
Indefatigable: Incapable of being fatigued.
Tizzy: A state of nervous excitement or confusion; a dither.
Ouroboros: Circle formed from a serpent with its tail in its mouth.
Dysphemism: The use of an intentionally more humorous or offensive term. Opposite of euphemism. Examples are “idiot box” for TV and “cancer sticks” for cigarettes.
Factotum: Employee or assistant who does just about everything.
A personal interview by our very own Bill Anholzer.
There are many people who keep the CaptionMax machine running smoothly. And when computers break, servers need upgrading, or general technology-related mayhem breaks loose, Chris Leininger, CaptionMax’s director of technology, keeps everything in order.
Chris came to CaptionMax more than ten years ago. After a successful interview (successful because, as CaptionMax legend goes, he chose to wear cowboy boots that day), Chris started working as a caption editor. So how does a caption editor with degrees in history and medieval studies become a director of technology? He describes it as a natural progression that started with troubleshooting office computers, moved into the machine room, and ended up overseeing all things CAMTOC (CaptionMax Technical Operations Center).
Outside of being CaptionMax’s technical guru, Chris enjoys spending time with his Pembroke Welsh corgi, Hixton. This summer, he plans to take Hixton to the top of Eagle Mountain, but he’s not going for the exercise or the scenic view. His goal is to take the shortest dog in Minnesota to the highest point in the state. When Chris isn’t amusing himself with the dichotomy between short dogs and tall mountains, you’ll find him growing beans and leafy greens in his garden and offering the extras to his co-workers when he gets a little overzealous with the Swiss chard.
He also surfs the internet a lot, but that’s kind of what you expect from someone who spends a lot of time with computers.
What Chris likes most about his work is the friendly atmosphere created by the smart, funny, and talented people he works with. Their appreciation and dedication to their work is obvious, and he’s looking forward to another ten years at CaptionMax.
Welcome to Fun Word Friday!
Here are some of our favorites – and we’ll post more each week!
Legerdemain: (1) sleight of hand (2) a display of skill or adroitness.
Pwn: An internet word meaning to own, to soundly defeat an opponent, from a typo of “own.” Most commonly pronounced “own” or “pone.”
Funambulist: a tightrope walker
Moonglade: the bright reflection of the moon on a body of water.
Ice Floe: Floating ice formed in a large sheet on the surface of a body of water
An article by our very own Jeremy Fisher, AD Supervisor.
The audio description staff has been busy. We’ve described a toy chest
full of “Backyardigans” episodes. It’s been fun describing Pablo the
Penguin, Tyrone the Moose, Tasha the Hippo, and Austin the Kangaroo as they pretend-play their way across deserts and through museums.
But what to do about Uniqua…the pink…uh… thing. Thankfully, the Nick, Jr. website helped us out by clarifying that she’s a “creature.” Creature sounds better than “Uniqua the pink thing”. .
People don’t generally think about what to call all the odd stuff in the world around them or how they’d express it if retelling the story later. I was listening to the public radio this morning, and the host was on assignment in a “huge” room with murals by Diego Rivera covering every wall. Describer alert! How huge is huge? Is it as big as a football field? Is it seven stories high, seventy stories? How impressed should I be? If you can’t see what’s being referenced, the most concise, vivid description is paramount. And while I’m on the subject, do all public radio personalities change their names so they sound cool when spoken aloud?
Name the NPR host.
Hey, kids. Draw a line from the picture to the cool NPR host surname it most resembles!
Welcome to Fun Word Friday!
Here are some of our favorite words from this week:
Widdershins: counterclockwise; also, in a contrary direction. Same as “withershins.”
Sternutation: the act of sneezing; also, a sneeze.
Miasma: a noxious atmosphere or influence; unpleasant or unwholesome air.
Ludic: characterized by playfulness.
Foudroyant: dazzling, flashing; also, thunderous, noisy.
CaptionMax has a dedicated Consumer Advisory Board with experts in all kinds of accessibility. Now, as guest bloggers, our board members can share their accessibility stories.
First, we’d like to introduce Michelle Rich, an Educational Captionist/ Advocate for the Olathe School District in Kansas. She has been providing access to media for students with hearing loss for nine years. She also loves advocating with production companies to provide captions, detailing the necessity of such, and encouraging those companies who are already providing captioning.
We should let her words speak now! It’s amazing how many talented people strive to make media accessible to all students!
I am an Educational Captionist for a large district in Kansas that serves many students with hearing loss, and I believe I have the best job in the world. It’s fulfilling, challenging, varied, and enjoyable. My main goal is to caption media for the classroom setting, to transform inaccessible media into accessible media in a short period of time. But along the way, I have the opportunity to do much more.
Awareness of access issues is sometimes my first task. I advocate with general education teachers to raise awareness of the critical need for access to the media they use in their classrooms. I work within the context of an amazing team that consists of a variety of talented folks providing service from many directions: teachers of the deaf, general educators, interpreters, transcriptionists, library media specialists, special education coordinators, under the umbrella of an innovative, forward-thinking district. Since I’ve been doing this for nine years, many of the general educators I coordinate with are already on board with the need for accessible media and I move on to finding it or creating it.
Part of my time is spent being a resource for finding accessible media. The Described and Captioned Media Program is an invaluable resource for borrowing educational media in a multitude of subject areas. If a specific title is requested and not available for borrowing or purchasing, then I get busy captioning it.
The variety of subjects to caption is always refreshing. I might be working on a piece of media from elementary to high school level, or from a core subject to a specialty course. Researching terms for correct spelling or discerning a word spoken with an accent can be challenging, but it keeps the work interesting. My favorite part of the job is delivering the finished product. I know for that period of time for that student, the playing field is leveled. I happen to think a few of the students who are visual learners or second language learners might benefit as well. It matters, and it is very satisfying.
Welcome to Fun Word Friday!
Here are some of our favorite words from this week:
Lugubrious: really fun word to say that means something is not fun at all
Quiddity: (1) an eccentricity, the essential nature of something, (2) a trifling point. “We are happy in our odd quiddities.”
23 Skidoo: To leave quickly, get out while the getting’s good
Ailurophile: A cat fancier; a lover of cats
Commodious: Comfortably or conveniently spacious
The final leg of our journey brings your project into the hands of our veteran caption proofers, and these folks are precision engineers. It takes years of experience looking for the tiniest of details throughout an enormous range of subjects to be this good. Their mastery over punctuation, capitalization, and spelling in a multitude of languages equips them with an exacting eye for detail.
Now that your captions are buffed to a sparkling sheen, they travel once again through our high-speed network to our technical gurus who encode your captions onto a fresh master tape. We can deliver almost any file, format, or tape you can dream of. Just ask us! There has even been talk in the engine room about encoding captions onto an English muffin using a specialized toaster oven, but we’ll save that for another day.
The whistle blows as the train slows down and gently pulls into our final station. Your tour guide will present you with your finished product, yet another successful project. As you grab your things and head on your way, we hope you’ll join us soon for another exciting journey.
From all of us at CaptionMax, we wish you safe and happy travels!
Welcome to Fun Word Friday!
Here are some of our favorite words from this week:
Boondoggle: an unnecessary activity or wasteful expenditure.
Jitney: (1) a nickel, (2) a small bus that carries passengers over a regular route on a flexible schedule (from the original price of the fare), (3) an unlicensed taxi
Grocers’ apostrophes: Apostrophes used incorrectly to signify a plural. “Bagel’s and pizza’s for sale.”
Bibliophile: a lover of books.
Malinger: pretend to be ill in order to avoid work or shirk duty.
Welcome back aboard the CaptionMax Speed Rail, your link to the fastest closed captioning around. Last week you met our amazing Sales and Project Management staff. Hang on now as we bullet through the captioning process.
The latest in video, encoding and captioning equipment are the infrastructure we use to pull your project into our system. Our state-of-the-art Technical Operations Center (CAMTOC) equips us with all of the tools we need, bringing you the flexibility, security, and speed that comes with keeping everything in-house.
Your project hits our high-speed network and lands into the hands of your very own expert captioner. We have the fastest fingers in the biz! With backgrounds in subjects spanning automotive to zoology, our captioners have all bases covered. Your program will be carefully transcribed and thoroughly researched with atomic accuracy.
Coming up next on the CaptionMax Speed Rail:
Your destination is approaching as we glide down the precision rails to our veteran caption proofers. Your tour guide will wrap things up, and you’ll be on your way with another successful project.