This has been a really challenging exercise for me. When I first listened to the extemporaneous speech, I figured that this would be trivial; “of course” I had heard everything. But as I played it over and over again to catch every sound, I realized just how much of it was sentence fragments, without even the basic structure of subjects, objects, and verbs! The interesting part here was that, as a native speaker, I never even noticed the fragments, the nonsense sounds; I was just hearing the bigger picture, and the mind just filled everything else in, stitching the sound pieces into what I had initially thought were complete sentences. I can see that this is not as easy when you are listening to each sound individually.
I unfortunately can’t embed this video here, so you’ll have to open it up in a separate tab or window, and flip between the two: Madoff victims on their ordeal
[Transcription; grammatical errors transcribed as heard, and not corrected.]
“Uh, I think, obviously this was the only response today, was to put him in jail, and I think, we’re all relieved that he’s there, since the money being used, uh, to keep him at home, was really our money. Uh, but beyond that, I don’t, I don’t personally have a sense of vindication…”
BBC: “…or, uh…”
“…satisfaction.”
BBC: “Can you tell us how much money you lost, and what that money was for?”
“Uh, I have been trying not to get into this, but, according to the records, about two and a half million dollars, and that money, really, was our nest egg for our grandkids’ education, for the New York charities, especially, and our universities that we have been able to support in a major way.”
“I lost everything, it’s every… When you lose everything, it doesn’t matter.”
Reporter: “Tell me how hard it’s been for you? What’s so [???] you?”
[???]
“It’s been really difficult. I have retired, and now I’m forced to go back to work. My business had been shut down, and it’s restarting it, and this is not a time to restart it.”
“Uh, we lost three million, but, our, er, in-law’s lost ten million, and my sister-in-law’s lost one million.”
BBC: “The figures are astounding, and you’re just one victim.”
“Just one.”
BBC: “Back on December the 11th, when Bernard Madoff was arrested, how did you feel?”
“I was devastated; I went hysterical. I knew th.. that moment, that I heard, that he was arrested, that our whole lives has changed, everything, we had to reverse and go backwards.”
BBC: “And, what situation are you left in now? Because, presumably… I mean, you’re talking about a lot of money, but presumably, this sustained your lifestyle, and it sustained what was going to be your retirement.”
“It was going to to be our retirement. It did not sust… sustain our lifestyle at that point, because we live very modestly, we lived beneath our means, and we saved and saved and saved. But, my husband was in the process of retiring, and we were going to use that money to live. So, his practice, (he’s a CPA), is basically, was basically ending, and now he has to build it back up, because everything, we lost with Madoff.”
BBC: “How do you feel about the man who’s inside that courtroom now?”
“He’s evil, he’s evil incarnate. He really is. He has no remorse. He’s just a horrible man, he stole from charities, charities closed up, pension. It’s just awful man.”
