Hi Gordon You were taught Braille in the same era as myself, and with the same logic at the time. They claim now though to have these daft changes in place so that it is easier with Braille translation software to have a unified code. I don't get it personally, but there you go!
Kind regards, Jackie Brown Twitter: @thebrownsplace Skype: Thejackmate -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Gordon Smith Sent: 15 November 2013 22:22 To: Techno-Chat ... Technology Enthusiasm! Subject: Re: Braille Hi Mary I wish we had the backbone to maintain our own individuality in these things. RNIB just seems to go down on its benders when people come up with these crazy suggestions. Personally I don't see what's really been gained by the adoption of UEB. In many respects it just creates more work because writing using UEB does away with some of the established rules we knew in grade 2 (contracted) Braille. Somebody once estimated that it would add an average of an extra volume to a 4-volume book. I thick that's a gross over-estimate. But maybe 10 or so pages would be more accurate. But I'll give you an idea of the kind of rules which have changed since I learned Braille way back in the swinging' sixties. When you write a word such as "Appear", it was a consistent rule that you would always use the contraction which represented the letters which came first in the word. So, using that example, the word "Appear" would have been written as "A", "p", "p", "E A" sign, "R". Today, that same word would be written as "A", "p", "p", "e", "a r" sign. Now, the difference may seem churlish to some. But on a broader scale, it's quite a shift in policy. Indeed, it changes much of the linguistic code we were used too and I have no idea why it was changed. To what purpose? WAs it the usual one, I wonder, to bring us into line with the US? No offence indented towards anybody in the US. But why must we always follow what the US does? Are our law-makers just as much poodles as our politicians are? Kind regards <--- Gordon Smith ---> <[email protected]> Information Technology Accessibility Consultant; Providing Help & Support To Young People LivingWith Visual Impairment, plus Braille Transcription services. On 11 Nov 2013, at 14:06, Stores, Mary A. <[email protected]> wrote: The USD adopted the UEB last November, but they are keeping Nemeth Code because, they say, it expresses Math better. So I think the differences in math will still be an issue. ======================================= The Techno-Chat E-Mail forum is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free To modify your subscription options, please visit for forum's dedicated web pages located at http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/techno-chat You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Techno-Chat group at either of the following websites: http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/techno-chat/index.html Or: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> you may also subscribe to this list via RSS. The feed is at: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> --------------------------------------- ======================================= The Techno-Chat E-Mail forum is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free To modify your subscription options, please visit for forum's dedicated web pages located at http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/techno-chat You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Techno-Chat group at either of the following websites: http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/techno-chat/index.html Or: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> you may also subscribe to this list via RSS. The feed is at: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> ---------------------------------------
