just another opinion - spelling rules and exceptions?

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
April 16, 2006

Stefan Wöhrmann wrote:
> And I like to experiment in this case with finding out if there is an
> exception ... in order to support a visual aspect ... Thanks for  
> your comment

Thank you, Stefan, and these spelling issues are fascinating!

The DAC and I, in the 1980s and 1990s, were writing mostly by hand.  
Towards the end of that time, we were on computers, but the Spelling  
Rules were based on the wonderful flexibility of writing by hand...

By the time I met you, Stefan, we had SignWriter DOS 4.4, and so many  
people in that era thought that SignWriter DOS 4.4 was the whole  
SignWriting system...they didn't realize, many times, that when we  
wrote by hand in the 1980's and 1990s that handwriting gave us a  
flexibility that SignWriter DOS 4.4  could not give us, because the  
computer could not hold all those thousands of possible hand-written  
variations in length of arrow stem etc....

So I realized lately that I need to go back to some of our old  
documents that were handwritten by the DAC to see some of the other  
cool things that happened when writing by hand....and one of them was  
the enormous variations in writing length of stem line, and circle- 
size etc...something that Ingvild has needed for so long in the  
IMWA...namely lots of sizes of circles!! Obviously SVG or true type  
gives this and i know that....but writing by hand was so wonderful  
and less complicated that creating True Type...for me at least..I  
know you are skilled at True Type, Stefan! I admire that...

OK. I unfortunately have to stop gabbing and prepare for my wonderful  
meeting with Todd Duell on Monday. Todd is bringing me a gift  
tomorrow...namely the new SignBank 8.0 program! It will be working  
the same from the user point of view, but internally the source code  
is totally different and will make it possible for us to connect  
SignPuddle and SignText with SignBank in a more flowing and  
intertwining manner - very thrilling really!

So have a splendid Easter and Monday everyone!! I will report to you  
on Tuesday or Wednesday about the new SignBank, and I hope to post  
the new version on the web next weekend...

Val ;-)


Valerie Sutton
Sutton at SignWriting.org

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