I was under the impression that c-print converts your abbreviated input into the real deal. Type in "ths sstm scks" and you get
"this system sucks" printed out. If it printed out the abbreviations, then I don't get the merit, and why a computer program, which
is what it is?
So space is the same, c-print or me print.
I read about a company that does something similar with the numeric keypad, except that it does "eigo-henkan" conversion on the fly.
Type in "t" and a list of words with beginning with t pop up, ordered by either frequency in the English language or frequency in
your own style. Type in "h" next and you get all the words starting with "th." Basically it is the same dealy as on most "help
search" programs on your computer nowadays. This system would get you to type in full words quite quickly with minimal thumb
movement.
Good point about being able to remove vowels in English. Hebrew and Arabic don't have vowels written in either except in certain
places like the beginning of words and so forth. Can Japanese do without vowels? I don't really care, but the kana system has
already obviated the need to worry about it.
Humorlessly,
Christian
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Turner" <leap@gol.com>
To: <keitai-l@appelsiini.net>
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 12:49 PM
Subject: (keitai-l) cn u rd ths w/o kllng me?
>
> Maybe this one has been beaten to death, but....
>
> Following up yet again on our perennial discussion about keitai favoring
> Japanese over English in both input and screen real estate: take a look at
>
> http://www.robson.org/gary/writing/caption-cart0101.html
>
> C-print is a transcription system for English that might be adapted to
> numeric keypad input. It certainly saves screen space and keypresses.
> Think of it! With just a little training, u 2 cn add 30% 2 yr typng spd!!
>
> Getting soberly linguistic for a moment:
>
> The c-print examples illustrate a contrast easily noticed in listening and
> speaking the two languages: if Japanese is a stream of consonant-flavored
> vowels, then English is a stream of vowel-flavored consonants. More so than
> Japanese, however, English retains most of its flavor when you remove the
> main seasoning.
>
> A good c-print "eigo henkan" for numeric keypads might therefore be more
> oriented around the frequency of consonants than vowels. Despite the
> relatively high frequency of vowel-symbols. they are truly the overpacked
> bags of English text.
>
> By one estimate of letter frequency, the alphabet looks more like this:
>
> " etaonrishdlfcmugywpvbkxjqz"
>
> Yes, of the ten most frequent letters in English text, 4 are used to denote
> vowel sounds that can often be guessed when omitted. (The supposedly-silent
> word-ending 'e' is nettlesome, since it often signals to the first vowel to
> its right to lengthen--e.g., 'quit' vs. 'quite'..)
>
> Some words are so common they shouldn't contribute to frequency
> analysis-based input.
>
> For example, 't' and 'h' are significantly more common than they would be if
> English had a symbol for the word 'the'. ('e' would be pretty high no
> matter what.)
>
> Throwing linguistic sobriety to the winds:
>
> In fact, English almost did get such a 'the' symbol. In those cutesy-quaint
> shopsigns saying 'ye olde Inn' or whatever, that 'y' used to be pronounced
> 'th'. Its name as a letter was 'thorn'. 'Y' looks like a thorn, after all,
> and maybe the tongue-tip-pointing-through-the-teeth suggested the image of a
> thorn to those sharp-tonged Anglo-saxon of thore, I mean yore, I mean way
> back then. (Dost thou get my meaning?)
>
> Writers of dialect often render 'the' as "th'". They probably shouldn't,
> but that's beside the point.
>
> So, getting Anglo-rootsy-cutesy here, how about just the letter 'y' for
> 'the'?
>
> More practical: maybe just 'd', which is pretty common to start with. This
> would certainly align it with some Empire City dialects. Hmm, on second
> thought, maybe not. Pretty soon we might all start talking like we're from
> d'Bronx, y'know? Ya don' wan' dat, do ya?
>
> There are still input optimizations to be had after shorthand, however.
>
> I coin the term 'eigo henkan' ("Eigo"="English", "henkan"= "transform", from
> "kanji henkan") in order sidle up to a point raised, I believe, by Curt
> Sampson: those irritating, wasteful spaces between words. They aren't
> useless, but they are nevertheless annoying. I put an initial space in my
> revised alphabet above for a good reason. The blank is the most common
> "character" in English text.
>
> Taking a cue from henkan, how about *always* offering a menu of possible
> translations of the last space-separated word, whenever the user inputs two
> spaces? You're already flicking that little stunted-joystick knobby thing
> to the right anyway, it's not big deal to do it one more time as long as
> you're there in the first place. (Also a good opportunity: upon entering a
> punctuation mark.)
>
> If it's done after a fully-spelled-out word, the menu can offer possible
> abbreviations. I think that's important, because it would go a long way
> toward getting people up the learning curve of 'standard' (c-print)
> abbreviations. This is two weeks, according the article linked above.
> Nobody's going to sit still for that. You need to get people going from day
> one, somehow, up a more gentle, months-long learning curve.
>
> If this double-space is done after a likely abbreviation, the menu can offer
> both the full spelling for confirmation and some other possibilities, a la
> word-processor spellcheck. This would also help people compose more
> formal-looking messages when the context required it. (Yeah, OK, like
> schoolkids who are trying to pass spelling tests. Where's my ruler....)
>
> Users would, of course, have the option of keeping the message entirely in
> c-print, for SMS and mobile e-mail to economize on screen space. Or just 2
> B cute.
>
> Finally, getting back to Space, the Final Frontier: how about varying or
> alternating word color or intensity, perhaps in ways that convey meaning, so
> that you could more comfortably leave spaces out entirely? And how about
> playing with character width while you're at it? English is a stress-timed
> language, so cramming all strings of unstressed words into about the same
> amount of space might save a lot of space without degrading readability very
> much.
>
> ya ya mybe ths is stpd. bt mybe not, so rmmbr, u hrd it hr 1st, ok?
>
> -michael turner
> leap@gol.com
>
>
>
>
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Received on Thu Dec 20 08:33:01 2001