Which Half is Mute?

October 6th, 2008

Filed under:
Mixed Bag

Which Half is Mute?

I snapped this photo while having a quick dinner at the Fernwood Inn before an event at the Belfry Theatre. It’s the lower-right corner of a TV set showing Monday Night Football. As far as I could figure, there was no sound issuing from the TV:

Interface designers never fail to surprise me in the ways they can screw up. What do you suppose ‘1/2 Mute’ means? Because, as it happens, mute means ’speechless’. So you really can’t be half-mute, can you?

I’m reminded of a story about a decade old, which I recount with affection, not mockery. My aunt come over to our house. She’d just arrived, and turned to notice our TV. “Oh,” she said, “there’s a mute on the screen.” In fact, the TV had been muted, and was displaying ‘MUTE’ in the lower-right corner.

An a related note, I tried to search for a URL for the Fernwood Inn. Claiming that I was headed for the Fernwood Inn, Google pointed me to an Australian fitness centre. The following screenshot illustrates the unusual error:

Tags: fernwood, Google, interface-design, mute, search-results, tv

Comments: 5 Responses so far

Todd Sieling
October 6th, 2008
8:09 pm

My tv has half-mute. I find it handy to monitor when the commercial returns and the program resumes but you don’t really hear the commercial content precisely enough for it to distract.

[Reply]

Todd Sieling
October 6th, 2008
8:10 pm

Well that was a properly mangled edit. I really do make good grammars in my cypherin, most of the time.

[Reply]

Derek K. Miller
October 6th, 2008
8:53 pm

I thought it might be that the TV has two audio outputs (1 and 2), and that this setting mutes both. But looks like Todd might have it.

[Reply]

Nathan Gilliatt
October 7th, 2008
5:24 am

My wife and I have wished for that feature, although I agree that it needs a better name. Remember, it’s possible for the volume to be on zero, too, which would make any mute setting redundant.

[Reply]