[sw-l] Handwriting and idiosyncratic SW

[Charles Butler]

Hi Sandy, Val, and lots of other people.

I would agree that Sandy is looking at how to make SW more flexible as a handwriting system.  It's all well and good if you are typing, but if you are writing, sometimes making multiple dots, or crosshatchings, or lots of other things which work marvelously if you are just pointing and clicking get VERY tedious to make clear in a SW handwriting system that still maintains the integrity of the SW system.

We need to start handwriting more and scanning that into our discussions so we get an idea of what "local conventions" are doing.  Imagine what happened, thousands of years ago, when the A, which had been written with the points up (it was a picture of a cow), flipped over.  We haven't seen it that way since the Phoenicians, but who knows what to expect.



Sandy Fleming <sandy at FLEIMIN.DEMON.CO.UK> wrote:
Hi Bill!

Yes, but I think the trouble with this is that people have to read it, and
the asterisk means what it means to them as SW readers.

Maybe people can find ways of writing some of these things faster as part of
their own handwriting style, but I just wanted to adjust the balance to make
it more writeable by addressing what matters in "live" fingerspelling (ie
less orientation, more contact). I don't want to actually change the meaning
or appearance of any symbols in the SW system, since readers will be
depending on stuff being recognisable.

One thing I thought of was not writing the contact symbol at all, _unless_
it needed to be doubled or suchlike. This adheres to SW symbology, but
perhaps there's a balance between readablity and writeability. This is why I
didn't use one-hand forms of "B" and "W", for example - more writeable, yes,
but not so easy for the reader to recognise.

Anyway, maybe the simplification you're suggesting could be left as a
stylistic, personal thing (like the little smiley some people use to dot
their i's :) unless or until conventions arise for alternative ways of
writing symbols that people find too tedious. Meanwhile, I'm happy to have
reduced the amount of writing involved by over half, while hoepfully not
letting readability suffer and hopefully without stepping outside of the SW
system itself.

Sandy

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
[mailto:owner-sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu]On Behalf Of Bill Reese
Sent: 04 October 2004 15:52
To: sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
Subject: Re: [sw-l] BSL Fingerspelling (Part 3)


Sandy,
That's an interesting progression. It will be interesting to see how it
pans out. While I don't sign BSL, I did notice that your simplification is
still a bit top-heavy in needing to use an asterick to indicate contact.
Makes me wonder if there is a simplified way to write that symbol. How
about just an "x"?

Bill





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