CourtReps-Steno

 

Eclipse Tips 7

By Paul Zuckerman

 

BY MR. KAHNFLICHT-FREIH:

           

  1. State your name.

 

  1. Paul Zuckerman.

 

  1. Your occupation?

 

  1. Court reporter.

 

  1. How many years have you been so engaged?

 

  1. 29.  But it doesn’t seem more than 50.

 

MR. KAHFLICHT-FREIH:  Objection to the gratuitous comment of the witness.

 

THE COURT:  The witness will refrain from inserting humor in his answers.

 

THE DEFENDANT:  It’s not funny to me, your Honor.

 

  1. (By Mr. Kahnflicht-Freih)  I understand you use Eclipse CAT software.  When did you purchase it?

 

  1. 1993.

 

  1. You understand the charge against you is that you knowingly, intentionally, willfully, and with malice aforethought on or about beginning in 1993 and continuing thereafter, up to and including the present, have systematically, deliberately, and purposefully created and added new conflicts to your main dictionary, in violation of what’s commonly known as the Court Reporter Heresy Act of 1980.  How do you plead?

 

  1. I usually get down on all fours and whine.  Of course, that’s only in front of my wife.  When my mother’s around, I cry.

 

MR. KAHFLICHT-FREIH:  Object to the wisecrack, your Honor.

 

THE COURT:  Overruled.  It’s no wisecrack.  I’ve met his mother.

 

  1. (By Mr. Kahnflicht-Freih)  Let’s try this another way:  Take a look at Exhibit A.  Do you admit that you have homonyms in your dictionary that share the same steno stroke?

 

  1. I’m having trouble because the lighting is dim.  Can we adjourn to the sea where I can see better?

 

  1. My point precisely.  Do you not have the entry SAOE = \see\sea in your dictionary?

 

  1. I seem to today.  It’s not that I wanted to, but it’s not my fault.  You see, when I write final D followed by TO for the word “to,” I sometimes out-write my steno machine, creating a stacking error.  Reporters can actually write faster than some steno machines can electronically clear one stroke to accept another.  Instead of TO/-D, the two strokes come out as one, TOD, which is my brief form for “today.”  So, yeah, I admit it:  I made a conflict.  TOD is defined in my dictionary as \today\{^ed}to, and Eclipse chooses correctly almost all the time.  So sue me.

 

  1. This is a criminal charge; but I’m sure we’ll be referring this case to the civil division after you’re convicted.  They’ll sue you.

 

THE DEFENDANT:  Your Honor, this is an outrage.  Who says I’m going to be convicted?  Why doesn’t my lawyer object?

 

THE COURT:  You’re representing yourself, sir.

 

THE DEFENDANT:  Well, I have a fool for a client.  Things aren’t looking good, but I sure hope I can go home soon.

 

  1.  (By Mr. Kahnflicht-Freih)  Now, correct me if I’m wrong, sir, but isn’t that another conflict in your dictionary, hope and home?

 

  1. All right, all right.  I drag final L a lot.  I can’t help it.  I have a lazy fourth finger on my right hand.  Many steno outlines in my dictionary are misstrokes that conflict with other words.  Sometimes I write HOEPL instead of HOEP.  I defined HOEPL as \home\hope.  I’m only human, so I make the Eclipse do the work.  Is that so bad?  Does that make me a criminal?

 

  1. You’ll have time for your closing statement later.  I realize when it comes to the law, you’re a novice on the job, but this is no place to get on-the-job training.

 

  1. You got me there, too.  I’ve taken many common phrases that can appear with and without hyphens and made conflicts of them.  \on the job\on-the-job, \up to date\up-to-date, \on site\on-site:  They’re all in my dictionary, and plenty of others just like them -- and compound words vs. two words, such as “Did he come back with a comeback?  Eclipse picks them all!  I can write faster, without hesitation, and I do less editing.  That’s progress, not heresy.

 

  1. Calm down, Mr. Zuckerman.  I’m here merely to present to the jury the evidence.  They’ll decide if you’re conflicted.

 

  1. Oh, I’m conflicted, all right.  When I bought Eclipse in 1993, I had around 300 conflicts.  Now I have 1,538.  Even my mother wouldn’t call me an enemy just for that.

 

  1. So you admit that you’ve used conflicts to resolve word boundary problems.  Why don’t you tell the jury about EPB/PHEU.

 

  1. My brief for “even” is EPB.  “Enemy” is EPB/PHEU.  Before I had Eclipse, every time I wrote “even my,” it translated as “enemy.”  So I made a conflict, \even my\enemy.  I don’t think about it anymore, but Eclipse does.  Wanna make something of it?  And if that upsets you, wait till you find out about how Eclipse handles conditional punctuation, using conflict logic to insert punctuation marks like commas and semicolons in the correct places all by itself.  But I suppose that’s a “crime” to be prosecuted in another trial.

 

MR. KAHNFLICHT-FREIH:  I rest my case, your Honor.

THE DEFENDANT:  So do I.

 


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