LL-L 'Resources' 2006.12.31 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L - 31 December 2006 - Volume 01
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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L 'Holidays' 2006.12.30 (02) [E]

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Holidays
>
> And let's not forget that December 31 is Sandy Fleming Day on
> Lowlands-L!
>
> Happy 50th, Sandy, and many thanks for all your support behind and in
> front of the scenes another year!

Ron, you'll give me a red face!

> You ought to check out Sandy's monumental Scots literature collection:
> http://www.scotstext.org/

Yes, this has been static for a good while, though there's always plenty
to do there if you like reading.

It always makes me smile when people say "monumental (and similar)
collection", because it only has a fraction of what I have here in my
library for putting up. It does take a long time to prepare a text, and
although I've always written automatic tools to help offline, I need to
get them organised so that they will free me of all possible
housekeeping tasks so that I just have to concentrate on getting the
text right, not having to keep track of everything.

I'm sick and fed up with Perl's insane approach to Object Orientation,
however, so am currently in the process of learning Python so I can get
everything done properly. It will be a relief to see the back of Tim
Toady's head, too! Sorry, I suppose only geeks will understand that, but
there are quite a few on the list  :)

There are some tools I've developed along the way for handling dialect
(or language variant) texts, which I'll make available once I'm happy
with them in Python, but there's one I did a couple of years ago is in
JavaScript and has been available ever since at:
http://sandyfleming.org/annotated/ This is "Glossary Show", a mechanism
for annotating online texts with glossaries. It underlines glossary
words in a subtle way, and only when the user hovers the cursor over the
text, thus keeping the text clean for reading yet making the glossary
visible when required. It also has a feature which allows the user to
highlight lines in the browser while reading... not sure if that's
really useful, I might remove it, or I might add useful features to it!
Thanks go to Ron for trying this system out repeatedly until it looked
good and worked well. If you know JavaScript you should have no trouble
implementing it on your site. The only challenge is to actually mark up
your HTML with glossary items - I'm working on something to ease that
process right now, then we should see glossaries starting to appear on
Scotstext!

New Years Resolution: to try and get those recordings done for the
anniversary site!

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

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From: Montgomery Michael <ullans at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L 'Holidays' 2006.12.30 (02) [E]

I'd like to second Ron's felicitations.  Sandy's work
and website have been a boon to all in the field of
Scots language studies!

Michael Montgomery

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Resources

Sandy (a.k.a. Birthday Boy):

> Ron, you'll give me a red face!

Awricht! Coud ye send us a photie o it than?

Seriously, Sandy, Michael and I seem to be in agreement here that what
you've created so far is nothing to sneeze at, and I'm sure we aren't the
only ones.  So, all right. "Monumental" is a big word.  From where you are
standing, Scotstext as it is now may seem like a drop in the bucket.  But
from where we are standing it's of hitherto unknown proportion, is in fact
unique.  So you could take the cynical road and say it's a case of a big
fish in a small pond.  That's neither here nor there.  The fact is that a
thing like this hasn't been done before, that you are doing it and are
sticking with it, that doing it serves both Scots speakers and Scots readers
on the one hand and Scots learners on the other hand, not to mention
promotion of Scots literature and language and the stimulus and education
it's likely to be for many. Seen in this light, "monumental" doesn't seem to
be an overstatement.  Where I'm coming from, casting a pebble into a still
pond can be a monumental act alone for the ripple effect it causes.  Most
folks moan about voids while a few take it upon themselves to try and fill
the voids despite the criticism they are likely to get from those that
previously did nothing but moan (it being a given that those that do nothing
tend to be the greatest experts).

As far as I am concerned, seriously interested people can already use
Scotstext quite well with the help of our Andy's dictionary (
http://www.scots-online.org/dictionary/) and the Dictionary of the Scots
Language (http://www.dsl.ac.uk/dsl/). If you can come up with those
glossaries, that a cherry on top.

Sandy, I know that sentimentalities and adulations aren't your things.  But
what are birthdays for but to celebrate you and to deliver a once-a-year
toast (or roast), to let you know how much we appreciate you and what you're
doing?  So grin and bear it, bro!

萬歲 (万岁) wan sui (Japanese banzai) -- "ten thousand years (of age)," Sandy!
Well, or at least another fifty ... and all of it with a lasting effect.

Best wishes,
Reinhard/Ron
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