Wanting to Become an Interrupter
Thursday September 18, 2008
Today I received an e-mail from someone saying they wanted to become an "interrupter." I referred the person to the Interpreting articles at About.com Deafness. The e-mail made me laugh..."interrupter" is in the same class as "death" instead of "deaf," don't you think?
Should I have referred the person to a school where they could learn the fine art of rudeness?
Talk on the forum about how hearing people sometimes mangle the language of deafness.
Comments
We would not want an interpreter who can’t spell!! It is scary! We need educated interpreters!
I had one hearing client refer to me as the “impersonator” before. Couldn’t help but laugh at that irony.
Sometimes Freudian slips shows in the choice of words. Does the writer have a control need? To intervene, or interrupt, proceedings to say something?
Other thought: if we have interpreters, do we have interpretees? Who would this be, the speaker or the listener?
Oh dear, that sounds like one of my former ASL I students who didn’t make beyond that first course.
First day of class, she proudly announced to us all that she intended to become an “interrupter for the deft” (That’s what *my* interpreter told me she said). I asked her to repeated herself to be sure what she said - yup, “interrupter for the deft”.
*Sighs!* Sorry, kiddo, but English proficiency is also a requirement for the job…. movin’ along!
Why so hard on the woman? Here she is trying to do something to become involved with the community. Some people need a little more education than others.
Looks like another “spell check” gone wrong. No worries, we read lips, we can read through this one.. LOL
Oh, I’m sorry. The next time I send a reply I’ll have someone check my spelling. It’s hard for me to see well with my limited eyesight.
Have a nice evening.
Hmmm….several of us have had this experience: when we’ve told people we’re interpreters for the deaf, they say, “oh, so you know braille!” And one lady said, “ah, so you know morse code!” Huh????
Here’s one for you. Back when I worked as an Educational Interpreter for our local public school district, we had a “substitute interpreter” show up one morning. She explained she had accepted the one day job to interpret for the “dead” children and “could we explain how that was done?”.
That is similiar to what some of my students have said–they like working with the “Death” kids…..Tha makes me feel like I work in the Twilight Zone when they say that!
LOL. As sometimes ignorance is bliss, it is also entertaining
(without being offensive). Maybe this person first language isn’t English, like me, but still wishes to learn ASL. It may help this person develop his/her English skills. If it is only for social one-on-one communication, instead of a serious situation (medical, legal, educational) I don’t see what’s wrong. After all, we all have our own misspellings (but I sure try to spell-check them all). I never understand when the Interpreters fingerspell either…. (well, I’m hard of hearing, I don’t know if native ASL speakers do understand fingerspelling that fast without any lip-reading). But this person learning ASL could help out a couple of persons in a shopping center if there was a sudden emergency situation. I just remembered a person with mental challenges in my workplace. If this person were not schooled on language skills (which still are poor), he/she would never try to communicate with me to let me know that an emergency message was given on the loudspeaker. I can’t understand the loudspeaker (it doesn’t work in my office either… but I need it to work so I can’t go outside to ask somebody what was told), and I don’t care how badly a person speaks, as long I got the message right.
I agree with Elizabeth Reilly.
I thought usually you (Jamie) advocate tolerance of differences, mainly status of hearing. Also, I thought you helped to educate people about differences. I am disappointed you acted so rudely making fun of this person and instead call him/her “rude”.
I wonder if the individual requesting the information was African American? This population almost always uses “th” and “f” interchangeably in the final consonant.
Wit or wif for “with”
Birfday for “birthday”
and, yes, death for “deaf”
It’s unfortunate that “death” is a real word once the substitution is made.
I say shame on you for making fun of this person’s difference from you.
Maybe you should have talked this over with someone knowledgeable before making such a outlandish posting, trying to embarrass this person.
I am hoping you will see your error and learn from it.
“Disappointed” said:
Disappointed, where exactly do you live? I’m curious about a place where entire populations of people have this speech defect you describe. I know you can’t possibly be suggesting that African-Americans are “almost always” unable to pronouce the “th” sound.
Anon,
Thank you for your question.
I live in a suburb near Detroit, Michigan. I probably should have said I hear the “error/difference” often. Among my colleagues, some of the substitutions that are made are merely considered “vernacular”.
I have had a similar experience among African Americans when I lived in a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Other than in an African American population, I have heard older causasian Americans use the term “death” for “deaf” as well in the Ozarks of Missouri and in southern Wisconsin.
Where do you live in the country that you have not heard this substitution? I am curious, too.
Anon,
Oh, and I didn’t say that African Americans CANNOT produce the different sounds, I said that in my experience I have oftentimes heard the sounds used interchangeably.
Thanks
I believe there was a time when we all took the ‘misspoken/misspelled’ words personal. I think Jamie’s second paragraph was intended to be humorous.
There are people who do lisp words and ‘th’ is one of those frequent types that can be mispronounced. Even deaf people may do the same because the quality of speech training has an impact.
It is amusing to find words that mean something else when the intention was what it was designed for. Phonetics may play a part in it. Death=Deaf is frequent and in some ways can be annoying. If it is rare, it is more amusing that annoying. I know some deaf people who may gesture being ‘dead’ when they read the word dead/death on the paper when it means deaf to illustrate the difference between both.
I do know that African-Americans/blacks do speak differently depending on where they live but it doesn’t always mean that we’re a complete separate species. I know black deaf do sign differently too and I enjoy learning from them, it is equally amusing.
Sorry if I was interrupting the definition of being an ‘interrupter’. The dictionary recognizes both variations - just too bad it doesn’t mean what it means. Grins.
Spell check doesn’t always work tho. Winks!
Wow! A couple of other Interpreters and myself were just talking about this “deaf and death” thing in school the other day. We actually giggled about it. (one of the Interpreters is African American)
What I am so disappointed in, is that this all turned to a racial discussion. If a person wants to get a career in a specific field, then they should do their research and know the proper words to use.
How sad it is in this day and age that we make fun of a person who is at least trying to do some good in our community. Perhaps it was funny at the time, perhaps the person didn’t have the same education as some of us has been blessed with, perhaps this person is one of those in our society that CAN make a difference to ONE person - isn’t that enough? Hopefully you had the decency to respond to her email??
…and yes, I wrote “has” instead of “have” - oops, maybe I shouldn’t be teaching deaf students
Actually the comment about the “death-deaf” comes from the average white middle class American children that I have worked with over the years who just don’t take the time to “hear” the difference between the two words. It was never meant to be a racial comment and generally by the end of the first semester my students do not make the mistake again. Children with articulation issues and those with dialect differences aside,it is still a commom error (as is the interrutper)amongst those who are not in the profession of working with the Deaf
Some people, like myself, are quite fluent with English but can’t type. Some, like myself, don’t see our errors until text is printed out. I wonder why an organization that supports persons who call themselves Deaf, have so little tolerance for others who struggle with other lines of communication. It could be that your poor typist might have done very well as an interpreter.