[duxuser] Re: Apostrophe Alert
- From: Catherine Thomas <braille@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 10:45:17 -0500 (EST)
Susan,
You're making this much more complex than we need it to be. The keyboard
symbol which we use to transcribe an apostrophe is the key to the right of
the semicolon. If we want to transcribe a person speaking we use the shift
of that same key. If we want to transcribe a quote within a quote we use
the accent/grave key.
In most cases, if the apostrophe is messed up it's not just in one place.
An alert could simply show if: 1. words such as don t are showing up with
any character besides that created by the key mentioned above. 2. If a
search for words ending in s produces any of the variety of characters
that can appear as a print apostrophe. Yes, it would be nice if the
apostrophe symbol which appears at the beginning of words instead of the
single quote could also be identified but 'tis a `far more difficult`
thing to arrange. What we need I suppose is something similar to the way
spell-checking features turn up acronyms. I didn't suggest that DBT be
able to correct this--only to alert us to the potential problem. You need
to remember that many people producing documents in braille these days
have so little knowledge of what they are doing that they don't even know
there is a problem.
In summary, those of us who transcribe professionally would like an alert
first to make our job easier and second to protect the end user (the
braille reader) from those who don't know any better. Since the print
characters look virtually identical in some cases, you can't assume that
by examining a document visually, even with the knowledge of this
difficulty, that the problem would always be observed. Some of the
characters that are potential apostrophes can result in as many as four
cells between the end of a word and the s. To those reading such a
document it's a tactual assaultm much as a room with walls damaged by
flood waters would be a visual assault. Sorry, I couldn't think of a print
example. Hope this clears things up a bit.
Catherine
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-Catherine Thomas
braille@xxxxxxxxx /
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