# transcribing informal words

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transcribing-informal-words/93009>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 12, 2001, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transcribing-informal-words/93009 "2001-11-12T23:37:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![LorieSmurf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a587f6/32.png) [@LorieSmurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LorieSmurf)\
**Post date:** [November 12, 2001, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transcribing-informal-words/93009/1 "2001-11-12T23:37:00Z")

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My mom’s hobby is geneology, family history, etc, and she’s transcribing some tapes on which she interviewed my great grandmother a couple of years before she died. She’s having trouble transcribing some expressions (i think that’s what you’d call that part of speech).

For example, how would you transcribe the terms that mean “yes”…I would write them as “uh-huh” or “mm-hmm”, and “yeah”

For “no” I would write it as “uh-uh” or “nuh-uh”

Do you guys know what I’m getting at? Is that the way you would write those words?

Can you think of any others that might come up in a casual dialogue?

Thanks guys!!

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**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2001, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transcribing-informal-words/93009/2 "2001-11-13T00:07:44Z")

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What you have sounds reasonable. Each transcriber has to use whatever seems right; there are no hard and fast rules for this. But the transcriber should try to maintain consistency, and choose one spelling for each expression; to vary them would imply varied meanings.