In print, no-one can hear you scream
27 January 2004. Inspired by .
"How do you spell defeat?" asked the New York Times on Thursday.
"Did Howard Dean's guttural roar in front of supporters after his third-place finish in Iowa begin with a 'y' or an 'r' ... or maybe an 'a'?"
It's a good question. I personally don't think that Dean's speech after the defeat in Iowa says anything at all about whether he's a good candidate or not - but what it has raised is an interesting point about transcription in print. How do you convey a yell to your readers, who don't have the benefit of clicking to hear it? (mp3).
Some, like the NYTimes itself, resorted to a description. "He punctuated the speech with a throaty howl." The yowl was, according to The Economist, "a banshee-like scream."
No, no, says the New Jersey Star Ledger, it was "a perplexing howl that sounded like a weightlifter who had just finished breaking a world record." Or maybe it was, as Mark Macguire in the Tulsa World, Oklahoma claimed, "a glottal eruption that made Dean sound like Timmy from 'South Park'." "It came out sounding like he pulled a rather delicate muscle." winced Michael Barnes of the Austin American Statesman, whereas TownHall.com's Jonah Goldberg preferred the more creative, if bizarrely anachronistic, "he sounded like he meant to go to a proctologist but accidentally visited a chimney sweep instead."
Those readers of this weblog who are deaf will be none the wiser. Perhaps a look at the official television transcripts will help.
"Yaaaaaaaaa!" - CNN Live, Midnight
"Yes!" - every subsequent CNN bulletin
"Yeah!" - ABC News
"Yes!"- MSNBC's Hardball
"Yes!", "Yea!", "Yaaa!" - Fox News, depending on the bulletin
"Yah!" - NBC bulletin, perhaps thinking that Dean was going to storm the Palace, not the White House
"Wee-yah!" - Voice of America News
The LA Times transcript has it, like ABC News, as a simple "Yeah!". But Dean Folkenflik in the Baltimore Sun felt cheated. "That printed transcript fails to capture the alarming energy of the scene," he howled the following day. "The final work in Dean's quotation was a surprising barbaric yawp... more of an extended yeeeee-arrrghhhh than a measly yeah."
Take a deep breath then. Here's the American press round-up.
"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!" reported the ever-shy and retiring Drudge Report.
"Yaaaaaaaaaah!", hollared the Washington Post.
"YEEEE-aaaah", cried the White House Weekly.
“Yeeeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhh." yells the Rockford Register Star.
"Yaaaaaaah!" screamed Jeff Jones at the Albuquerque Journal.
"Yeeaahhhhhhhhh!" shouted the Omaha World Herald.
"YAAAAHHHHHH!!" bawled the Kansas City Star.
"Yeagh!" gulped the Frontrunner, and last but not least,
"Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!!!!" moaned the Vanderbilt Hustler.
Note the exclamation marks.
Over in Canada, the press was the equivalent of the knight who couldn't say 'ni'. "Yee-arrr" yawped The Leader Post of Saskatchewan. "Yee-arrr!" agreed the National Post of Canada (although the CanWest newswire may have had something to do with that coincidence).
Back over the Atlantic, the BBC seemed keen to get into the act with a "Yeeaarrgghh!", adding r's and g's where others had not.
The Independent first had it as "Yeahhhhhhh," and with a more British full-stop at the end too, although they did modify the spelling (but not the punctuation) a few days later in their 'quotes of the week' page, to fall in line with the BBC's "Yeeaarrgghh."
"Yarghay" coughed The Guardian, somewhat mysteriously.
"Yeeeeeeah!" cried the Financial Times of Germany, followed by the war-cry (in English) "Funkmaster Dean is in the house."
El Pais went for the vowel solution with "Yeeeeeeeeaaah!", and Le Monde decided to be the only paper not to spell it with a 'y': "Aaaaaarrrrhhhh !!!!!" All of which is reminiscent of the old debate, does a dog go 'woof' or 'guau'?
And how about the news on the wires? Reuters had it as a "Yeaeeeaaaaah!" (odd placing of the first 'a' there) and Associated Press (AP) initially as a "Yeah". Agence-France Presse called it "Yeeeearrgh" and the Press Association as "Yeeeah".
None of these really caught on, until Will Lester wrote a piece for AP about how the scream was becoming a cult hit. Suddenly this reporting on the reporting became the big story and his perhaps slightly-over-the-top "YEAHHHH!!!" (all in caps) has now become the officially recognised spelling of the Dean Scream.
Spotted here, here, here, here, here, and probably in almost every newspaper near you.
Oh and one other thing. CNN's initial report, immediately after Dean had made the speech, didn't think the scream worthy of a mention. Perhaps, in the wider scheme of things, they had a point.