Catchword: voice writing

Filed under: English

Part of speech: n.

Quotation: In the US, court reporters have abandoned stenotype machines, whose keyboards use chord-like combinations to represent sounds, for a technique called voice writing. The “writer”—really a speaker—repeats testimony into a microphone nestled in a hand-held mask that prevents her voice from being heard in court; the recording is later transcribed, usually with speech-recognition software. The Stenomask dates back to the 1940s, when an American court reporter encased a microphone first in a cigar-box, then in a tomato tin, and finally in an old coffeepot, but it didn’t become a standard fixture until the advent of speech recognition programs. It’s also cheaper: machine stenography takes three years to learn, voice writing six months.

Article or document title:
“Diary” (URL)

Author:
Leah Price

Article, document, publication, web site:
London Review of Books

Publishing location:
United Kingdom

Date of publication:
Dec. 4, 2008

This catchword has yet to be researched.