[BRLTTY] Contraction errors

[Lee Maschmeyer]

Dave Mielke wrote:

>[quoted lines by Lee Maschmeyer on 2006/07/25 at 10:59 -0400]
>
>>I've found the following errors as of build 2369:
>
>These should now be all fixed except for the following:

Verified. Thanks very much.

>>the a (missing space)
>
>I don't think this is wrong.

Yes, it's wrong. Consider the following sentence:

The a in apple is short.

The reason the other combinations allow deleting the space is that they 
don't result in confusion. Thea, on the other hand, could conceivably be 
somebody's name. (Yes; Willa Cather wrote a book with a character named Thea 
Kronborg.)

>>--to the (to should be contracted even following two hyphens)
>>--and a (extraneous space)
>>"For the (extraneous space)
>
>Are you referring to two hyphens in print, or to the two-hyphen braille 
>symbol
>for a dash?

Two hyphens in print, which result in two hyphens in braille. The following 
two print sentences, though not identical, are equivalent and should be 
contracted identically:

Yes - and a fine morning it is, too. (The 3-character sequence space hyphen 
space results in two hyphens; this is handled correctly.)

Yes--and a fine morning it is, too. (This should look identical in 
contracted braille; obviously there is no reason for the space after "and".)

The third example did not involve hyphens but instead quotes. The following 
two examples should be identical as far as contractions are concerned:

For the Beauty of the Earth

"For the Beauty of the Earth"

HTH,

-- 
Lee Maschmeyer
<lee_maschmeyer at wayne.edu>

"Be kind to your fur-bearing friends,
For a skunk may be somebody's brother."
     --Fred Allen