Hello all,
For information, I've just put in a complaint and a request for action to RNIB,
because last week, they started sending out magazines in Unified English
Braille. I have no problem with that, except that the notice (in U E B) at the
front of the magazines stated that a guide sheet was sent out along with the
magazine, showing the most commonly encountered changes to the code, but the
magazines I was reading had no such guide. I would also have thought that the
time to send out the guide sheet was when the magazines in "old skool Braille"
were heralding the imminent arrival of magazines in the Unified Code.
To go back to the code itself, from what I've now seen of it, I don't think
I'll have too much difficulty getting used to the effects of the loss of
certain contractions, and fully understand the logic of removing ambiguities,
such as dot six being used in contractions like ation and ally, and as
punctuations. However, it will be helpful to see how it is representing other
types of print, such as block capitals versus initial caps. Are wew on a hiding
to nothing trying to slavishly follow or represent pring though, so that we
have to surround a word with so many extra symbols to show that it's initial
capitals, underscored and bold, for example? I'm noticing increasingly that
documents I'm receiving are conveying information by colour coding. Will we one
day need a supercode, in which say, dot five followed by dot 2 followed by dots
5-6 followed by a slash means that the following word is in blue, with another
set to indicate red, so that we'll know which is which when the text says:
"Training courses in redhave no discount, courses in blue have a 50% earlybird
discount, and courses shown in green are free"? And on the subject of
disappearing contractions, I've never seen the point of the grade 2
representations of receiving, perceiving, deceiving, Declaring? I know it's
because the I N G sign wouldn't work, but why not just get rid and write c e v
ing instead of cvg?
Best,
Clive
Clive Lever
Diversity and Equality Officer
Kent County Council
Office: 03000 416388
Email: clive.lever@xxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:clive.lever@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Kent County Council
Room G37
Sessions House
Maidstone, Kent.
ME14 1XQ
