Hi, Gary. Yes, in all the hardcopy braille books I've read from NLS, an m-dash was represented by two dashes. Take care. Julie Morales Email and Windows/MSN Messenger: inlovewithchrist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx When God puts a tear in your eye, it is because He wants to put a rainbow in your heart. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gary Petraccaro" <garyp130@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, October 01, 2004 10:33 PM Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Re: Ellipses and em-dashes Amen to that. Btw, isn't an m-dash represented by two dashes in braille? Is there any reason not to replace a long-dash with two standard hyphens? Sorry, have not been paying too close attention to this list or this particular thread. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Guido Corona" <guidoc@xxxxxxxxxx> To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, October 01, 2004 8:48 AM Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Re: Ellipses and em-dashes > You are correct. Neither my way nor yours are necessarily the best ones. > On the other hand, if you consider that we are creating documents for > paying customers, we should strive to offer them the best possible > product, which applies to the widest possible audience. > Whether you use Kurzweil, Openbook or Acme's OCR I do not really care. > What I care Is that the final product is of the highest possible quality > and is as close as possible to the body-text of the original. That > includes maintaining such characters as long-dashes intact if at all > possible, and font changes as well. > > Guido > Guido D. Corona > IBM Accessibility Center, Austin Tx. > IBM Research, > Phone: (512) 838-9735 > Email: guidoc@xxxxxxxxxxx > > Visit my weekly Accessibility WebLog at: > http://www-3.ibm.com/able/weblog/corona_weblog.html > > > > > > Dinky > Sent by: > 09/30/2004 10:14 PM > Please respond to > bookshare-discuss > > > To > <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> > cc > > Subject > [bookshare-discuss] Re: Ellipses and em-dashes > > > > > > > Did you know Guido your way is not always the best way and we don't even > have to take the highway if we do not use your way or K1K? Hey. hey. > *smile* Did somebody make you God anyway? Sorry others listers and Dr. > Peter; sometimes my mouth and typing fingers are like a free bleeder. > Dinky > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Guido Corona" <guidoc@xxxxxxxxxx> > To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> > Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2004 12:27 PM > Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Re: Ellipses and em-dashes > > >> If you use Kurzweil 1000 long dashes are kept. PLEASE do not replace > long >> dashes with anything else. >> Only downlevel versions of Openbook massacre long dashes. Please update >> your OpenBook to the latest version or use Kurzweil. A long dash is a >> character entity encoded by a short series of bytes: it will survive in > a >> text file. >> Italics are a different kettle of fish and survive only in RTF, KES, or >> other marked up format. But once again, do not remove or change to >> something else. Just retain as RTF and submit the RTF file to > Bookshare. >> In general, we should not degrade the body content of the document if > at >> all possible. >> Guido >> >> Guido D. Corona >> IBM Accessibility Center, Austin Tx. >> IBM Research, >> Phone: (512) 838-9735 >> Email: guidoc@xxxxxxxxxxx >> >> Visit my weekly Accessibility WebLog at: >> http://www-3.ibm.com/able/weblog/corona_weblog.html >> >> >> >> >> >> shannon work >> Sent by: >> 09/29/2004 09:09 PM >> Please respond to >> bookshare-discuss >> >> >> To >> <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> >> cc >> >> Subject >> [bookshare-discuss] Re: Ellipses and em-dashes >> >> >> >> >> >> >> Cindy, >> >> I am not trying to split hairs but just need a little clarification on >> something. >> >> In the post you made, wich I left atached, you make mention of > something >> called an en dash, and an m dash. >> Is this something different or was that a typo? >> Like I said not trying to split hairs but I just learned about the M > dash >> and this EN dash has me a little confused. >> >> I'm sorry, and apologise if I am pestering but, I am lost and never was >> much >> good at punctuation. >> >> Thanks for the time, >> Shannon >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Cindy" <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx> >> To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> >> Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2004 6:27 PM >> Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Ellipses and em-dashes >> >> >> > I'm glad I read more posts before explaining the >> > difference between ellipses and em dashes. Guido did a >> > very good job. I'd just like to add a little more to >> > his explanation -- but before I do, Guido -- the em >> > dash isn't retained in txt. I'm validating this in >> > Word in larger font, so I can see it better, but I did >> > what someone suggested and closed and saved it in the >> > original txt to see what formatting was kept. The em >> > dashes, line breaks, and italics all were lost. So I'm >> > following the same person's suggestion (Kellie or >> > Jana, I think) and using a doulbe hyphen,with a space >> > on either side. >> > >> > Ellipses are used, as the original poster (Was it >> > Dave?) said, to show that something has been >> > eliminated from a quotation. They can also be used to >> > show that a sentence is unfinished, as opposed to >> > being interrupted. I don't have any examples of that >> > in the book I'm doing now, but . . . >> > >> > O.K. That was one. I couldn't think of how to finish >> > the sentence, so I used ellipses. Here's another: As >> > Mary came downstairs, John said, "Maybe tonight we >> > could . . . " His voice trailed off as he saw the man >> > behind her." >> > >> > As Guido said, an em dash is a long dash, used to >> > interrupt a sentence with a different thought, >> > parenthetical or xplanatory but not necessarily strong >> > enough to be in parentheses. Here is an example from >> > the book I;m validating: "She gave a tiny laugh (em >> > dash) a nervous one, he thought (em dash) when it >> > took a minute for their strides to coordinate . . ." >> > (Here the ellipsis is because I'm not finishing the >> > sentence). Another examaple: "Daph (em dash)" >> > Another person interrupts: "I know." Here the em dash >> > shows that the person who was speaking was interrupted >> > rather than that he lost his train of thought. >> > >> > I admit that since en dashes are used so rarely, I >> > can't think at the moment of why one would be used >> > instead of an em-dash except for poetic effect, which >> > is why I think it was used in Silk. >> > >> > I hope this explanation isn't too long-winded or >> > doesn't repeat anything anyone has already written >> > that I haven't yet seen. And that it clarifies the >> > differences. As Guido says, and as you all know, a >> > hyphen connects compound words or breaks words at ends >> > of sentences when they don't fit on a line. But those >> > we close. Unfortunately, sometimes, as with the book >> > I've validating, scanners, and maybe validators, sue a >> > global replace to eliminate all hyphens and that >> > results in their being eliminated where they sometimes >> > belong. >> > >> > Cindy >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > _______________________________ >> > Do you Yahoo!? >> > Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! >> > http://vote.yahoo.com >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> > > > > > > >