[MIham] Re Subscriber Request

[STeve Andre']

On Wednesday 04 August 2004 14:14, Duane Fischer, W8DBF wrote:
> Please do not use multiple punctuation marks as a substitute for a period,
> as in:  Thanks to all...More coming soon...See ya... This causes those who
> use a synthetic speech device all sorts of issues they should not have to
> be subjected to. A single '.' will suffice.
>
> Additionally, please do not use multiple exclaimation marks, question marks
> or commas. Use just one, that is all that is needed.

Duane, with all do respect to those who use special communications systems
in order to overcome difficulties, I think it would be better to work on 
software such as pre-processors for text which take malformed data and
turn it into something better suited for specialized devices.

The usage of three periods is not an incorrect usage of English, if someone
is meaning to leave a tailing thought.  Using two spaces after a period is not
universal; in the 60's in the Ann Arbor public schools I was taught to use one
such space.  It wasn't until high-school that I met the school of philosophy
that said use two.  I can find examples of both today.

I readily understand the problems here, having helped someone use a text
BBS in the 80's; there were indeed little weird things to deal with, but the
creation of a filter before the speech unit saw the text seemed the way to
go at that time, and it still does now, at least to me.  You can't get people
to write "proper" English easily; many people today simply dont attach much
importance to it, even those where the substance of their messages can be 
quite interesting.

--STeve Andre'
wb8wsf