[bksvol-discuss] Re: Question for Braille Readers

  • From: Mayrie ReNae <mrenae@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:53:11 -0700

Hi Cindy,

Poor spelling is certainly not limited to blind people. Blind people just have to work harder to spell well in these days of speech. I wish I could say that I'm a stellar speller. I'm not, but I do want not to be a poor one, so make the effort to attend to my spelling better.

Peace,
Mayrie

At 06:37 PM 3/24/2008, you wrote:
OOOOOOO, Mary, good job! I hadn't even thought of that aspect of it.
Lots of people learn to write braille by how they read it; that is an
important point in itself. They cement their braille knowledge and
spelling, too, by what they see whether with fingers, I think, or with
eyes. I think in this day of speech, which is lovely, we endanger them
of having compromised spelling and braille reading ability. Although
while we are on the topic, I am seeing a lot of sighted folk saying
that they would like to write personnels rather than personals, and
that you should definately do this or that.

Cindy Lou the Cranky

Cindy Lou Ray. Each day is a new adventure.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mayrie ReNae" <mrenae@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 8:23 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Question for Braille Readers


Hi Cindy,

         Well, we're both old and cranky then.  I don't know why
people are willing to compromise proper punctuation when making it
come out correctly in both print and braille takes only a couple of
seconds when validating a file.  Contrary to what people seem to
think, it is not incorrect in print to represent the em dashes as
double hyphens.  We are just lucky enough these days to have them be
a punctuation mark that our word processing software can insert.  And
yes, Darrell may know what the hyphen  is supposed to mean in the
place of an em dash, but does everyone, especially every young
reader?  Do you want young kids to read NLS web braille books
punctuated correctly and then bookshare books punctuated incorrectly,
and wonder which punctuation mark she is supposed to use in her own
writing,  when you as validators could clear that up easily?

And, if we're talking about things like that, do you know how many
times I see in books now and on e-mail lists the word "then" used
where the word "than" should have been used?  An example of what I
see in this case would be: "I like milk better then water." How many
people misspell there their and they're?  That happens in the blind
community because too many people didn't read enough braille to know
the differences.  Now, we want to give them inaccurate braille too,
when making it accurate takes less than thirty seconds to accomplish
while validating a book?

This is a subject that I hope gets resolved.  Otherwise, you all are
going to hear me rant about sloppiness and laziness and compromising
the educations of blind children for years to come.  And you'll want
to tell me to put a sock in it.  And I won't.  I believe in educating
our children properly.  It's difficult enough to find blind people
who can spell.  And now you want to make them think that an em dash
is a hyphen too?

Okay,  I'll shut up now, for this round.

Peace,
Mayrie

  At 03:47 PM 3/24/2008, you wrote:
>Excuse me, but why is that compromising the book. In the rules of
>NLS,
>they say that when the book was being transcribed it wasn't always
>easy to tell which it was, but if it would fit that -- requirement it
>should be used. That's more or less a paraphrase, and I can't tell
>you
>exactly where. It doesn't compromise the print book in any way.
>Personally, I cringe when I see it any other way, but then again I'm
>old and cranky. LOL.
>
>Cindy Lou
>
>Cindy Lou Ray. Each day is a new adventure.
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Darrell Shandrow" <darrell.shandrow@xxxxxxxxx>
>To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 5:39 PM
>Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Question for Braille Readers
>
>
>Hi Allison,
>
>My take on this may be a bit different than most Braille readers.  I
>do not
>feel it is a good idea to compromise the formatting of the print book
>for
>the sake of Braille translation, especially when it is not absolutely
>necessary to do so.  We Braille readers know what is intended even
>when only
>a single dash appears.
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Allison Hilliker" <bookshare_girl@xxxxxxx>
>To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 3:25 PM
>Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Question for Braille Readers
>
>
>Sue, Thanks for the info.  It's good to know how NLS does their
>dashes.  So,
>then my next question is, what does everyone prefer?  Should I create
>double
>dashes as NLS does, or simply leave things as is?
>
>Either is fine with me as replacing em dashes won't take too much
>time.
>
>Best,
>Allison
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "siss52" <siss52@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 2:22 PM
>Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Question for Braille Readers
>
>
> >
> > Hi Allison,
> >
> > What the National Library Service does in their Braille books is
> > to
> > use
> > two
> > hyphens or dashes where the em dash would be.  For example, in
> > this
> > word--word.  But people have been leaving them as they appear in
> > the
> > book,
> > and you are right, they translate to a single hyphen or dash.  So
> > when we
> > do
> > that, the hyphen or single dash and the em dash look the same.
> >
> > In Word, when I have a file with em dashes in it, they look like a
> > capitalized dash or hyphen on my Braille display.  It has dots 7
> > and
> > 8, so
> > it looks like dots 3, 6, and 8.
> >
> > HTH,
> >
> > Sue S.
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Allison Hilliker" <bookshare_girl@xxxxxxx>
> > To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 3:39 PM
> > Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Question for Braille Readers
> >
> >
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > Quick question for Braille-readers.  I do read Braille myself, but
> > I've
> > never paid attention to this issue before.  I'm validating a book
> > with a
> > lot
> > of em dashes.  They look like this. - They usually connect two
> > words
> > like
> > this. word1-word2.  They do not usually have spaces around them.
> > In
> > the
> > past I have left them as is in the books I validate.
> >
> > My question is, should I be doing anything special with the em
> > dashes in
> > order to make them easily read in Braille?  I've never known there
> > to be a
> > special Braille character for the em dash, but there may be one.
> > Does it
> > just look
> > like a regular dash, or something else?  Do they appear with
> > spaces
> > around
> > them or not?  Would most of you prefer me to add spaces, change
> > the
> > em
> > dashes to regular dashes, leave them alone, or something else?
> >
> > Thanks for any feedback you can give.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Allison
> >
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