[duxuser] Re: single quotes and apostrophes
- From: "Dale Leavens" <dleavens@xxxxxxx>
- To: <duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 1 May 2003 22:10:32 -0400
Hi,
Just a small point but occasionally the apostrophe will be followed by a
space and even more occasionally preceded by one though the latter case will
not ever bother my undiscerning needs as it arises so infrequently that I
will be happy to live with it.
Dale Leavens, Cochrane Ontario
dleavens@xxxxxxx
Home of the Polar Bear Express!
----- Original Message -----
From: "George Bell" <george@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2003 12:59 AM
Subject: [duxuser] Re: single quotes and apostrophes
Hi all,
I'm now in Westford at Duxbury's offices, and having just got a new lap top,
I don't have access to my office system just yet.
For another list, I did write a lengthy explanation of the history of ASCII
and ANSI character sets. I will try to post that when I get back to the
U.K.
All I will say in the meantime is that I'm personally sorry to say that the
Braille world has not yet caught up with the computerised world we are
seeing today.
For example, in days gone by, there was and opening and closing quote which
looked like a 66 and 99, but small, and raised above the text - referred to
as "superscript"
TODAY, we use ONE key on our keyboards for "Double quotes", be they opening
or closing.
Likewise, a single quote is now one key and character. And it is also used
for the apostrophe.
How I, as a sighted person involved in Braille, wish that Braille could be
brought up to date, certainly in terms of day to day text.
I see absolutely no confusion here.
An opening single quote is always preceded by a space or followed by a
space, so it cannot really be confused with an apostrophe which ALWAYS has a
letter or character immediately before and immediately after it.
By this reasoning, if "Smartquotes" appear, it would make more sense to
convert them to the equivalents of the keys used in computers.
Just two Braille symbols.
George.
-----Original Message-----
From: duxuser-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:duxuser-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Dale Leavens
Sent: 29 April 2003 21:38
To: duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Terry,
The symbols do look the same. I am unaware of any computer keyboard capable
of creating the single quote. This is really a fairly new construct as
typewriters don't include it either. I do not recall learning the correct
usage of the single quote at any time during my English grammar or
literature education but this may well reflect a poor education.
It is interesting that you do not get the ~ character (tilde) when you cut
your text to DBT. This is what I always get with that symbol.
Though off topic I am interested to know when one is actually supposed to
use the single quote character. I do not recall running into it even in
braille transcribed by RNIB or APH.
Dale Leavens, Cochrane Ontario
dleavens@xxxxxxx
Home of the Polar Bear Express!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Terri Pannett" <pann1@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "duxuser" <duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2003 2:50 PM
Subject: [duxuser] single quotes and apostrophes
Dear List,
I thought it would be best to change the subject line.
The situation of the wrong symbol being used is really a pain in the neck,
especially if you're reading text in a program.
I just recently got the Windows version of the Online Bible. Every time I
look up a passage, all the words in the passage which should have
apostrophes contain single quotes. This means my fingers run over two cells
of wrong braille and WindowEyes will read the word wrong, too. There's no
way to correct things if a program sets up the text wrong. The "smart-tag"
explanation explains the reason why I see single quotes where I should see
apostrophes, but the problem isn't solved.
Now, I have discovered if I copy a passage of Scripture to the Windows
clipboard and read the text using DBT, all these nasty single quotes are
stripped. The apostrophes are still missing, but the single quotes are
missing, too. I think I can handle not seeing single quotes and apostrophes
better than seeing single quotes where there should be apostrophes.
In the DOS version of the same program, the opposite is true: single quotes
appear as apostrophes. I went nuts with that, too, but if I've got to see a
wrong sign, let it be a one-cell sign, not a two-cell sign.
I gather that there are two different Ansi values for both symbols, so
perhaps DBT could be programmed so when it recognizes the Ansi value of the
symbol for apostrophe, it will translate it as dot 3; and when it sees the
Ansi symbol for single quote, it will recognize it as the single quote and
translate the symbols as the two-cell sign. Perhaps there could be an
option so a person could "strip" out all the symbols represented by the
"smart-tags".
I have a PC keyboard which doesn't have a special key for the single
quote--I have to use the grave accent key to make a correct braille single
quote sign. But my BrailleNote does have a special key for single quotes.
I'm wondering if there are PC keyboards which have the special key included
in them?
I'm also wondering if it bothers sighted people to see the wrong symbol, or
does the single quote in print look like the apostrophe?
Perhaps the rules in the U.S. and U.K. could be changed so both single
quotes and apostrophes are represented in braille as dot 3.
I guess some of you might think I'm nuts, but there GOT to be a solution to
this problem and it's not going to come from either Microsoft or Corel. (In
fact, DBT doesn't like the so-called "rtf" files so I have to convert such
files to plain Ansi when I copy passages of Scripture to the clipboard.)
Perhaps someone has a better idea than any I have proposed.
Terri Amateur Radio call sign KF6CA. Army MARS call sign AAT9PX, California
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