What did you use in the dictionary?

You could try a regular expression match on:  GD-(\d{1,})    and replace with Gee Dee \1
This should make GD- followed by one or more numeric digits read as Gee Dee followed by the actual number that the string of digits represents.
--

Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 2004, Build 19041  

The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance but to overcome it.
       ~ Lawrence Krauss

Hi.

 

I’m encountering an issue with Vocalizer and JAWS. It’s substituting what it thinks something should be, and it’s wrong. Let me illustrate.

 

There is a ham radio called the GD-77. Vocalizer says it’s the good 77, and that’s not right. The letters should be spelled out. I tried to do a dictionary entry for the word, but it didn’t work. I also never knew Google had a service called grams mail. This is annoying, and because of it I’m back to good old Eloquence. I prefer Vocalizer’s speech, but not with all the so-called “helpful” abbreviation conversions.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Kevin and Jilly

I think that the most likely method for affecting change, and it's a very necessary change in my opinion, is to have as many users as possible storm Vispero as well as Nuance and insist on these changes. Other than adding dictionary exceptions I know of no way to disable these exceptions and there really should be a way. In fact, I honestly question whether these exceptions should even be built into this software but by software I'm referring to Nuance and not JAWS. I'm not certain if contacting Nuance directly will make a difference. However, Vispero is technically the customer of Nuance since I'm sure they have paid a large licensing fee in order to include Nuance voices with their products. Therefore, if a good customer like Vispero advocated for this change because their customers were insisting on it it's perhaps possible that Nuance might respond favorably.

David Goldfield,

Blindness Assistive Technology Specialist

JAWS Certified, 2019

WWW.DavidGoldfield.org

Hi.

 

I’m encountering an issue with Vocalizer and JAWS. It’s substituting what it thinks something should be, and it’s wrong. Let me illustrate.

 

There is a ham radio called the GD-77. Vocalizer says it’s the good 77, and that’s not right. The letters should be spelled out. I tried to do a dictionary entry for the word, but it didn’t work. I also never knew Google had a service called grams mail. This is annoying, and because of it I’m back to good old Eloquence. I prefer Vocalizer’s speech, but not with all the so-called “helpful” abbreviation conversions.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Kevin and Jilly

On Wed, Sep 16, 2020 at 06:44 AM, David Goldfield wrote:

Other than adding dictionary exceptions I know of no way to disable these exceptions and there really should be a way.

-
David,

           That is the way.   There is no default that is going to please everyone.  And there are circumstances, like the abbreviation ess tee, that it would require artificial intelligence to know whether it was saint or street, and heaven forbid you had something like 125 St. Peter St.  (One twenty five saint peter street).

            For myself, it would drive me mad to have every conventional abbreviation such as for street, lane, avenue, boulevard, or symbols such as the dollar sign when used with numbers, announced as the character itself.   There are some logical leaps that make abundant sense in practice.  And if you're not happy with what a given synth chooses to do, it is a simple matter to add an exception in the screen reader's appropriate dictionary to suit the circumstance.
 
--

Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 2004, Build 19041  

The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance but to overcome it.
       ~ Lawrence Krauss

The fact is that these modern, human-sounding synthesizers are absolutely notorious for doing this. To me it's maddening as I don't want my reader, human or synthetic, to substitute what's on the screen for what it thinks are the correct replacements based on commonly used abbreviations. This is one reason why there will always be a place for voices like Eloquence and ESpeak. 

David Goldfield,

Blindness Assistive Technology Specialist

JAWS Certified, 2019

WWW.DavidGoldfield.org

What did you use in the dictionary?

You could try a regular expression match on:  GD-(\d{1,})    and replace with Gee Dee \1
This should make GD- followed by one or more numeric digits read as Gee Dee followed by the actual number that the string of digits represents.
--

Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 2004, Build 19041  

The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance but to overcome it.
       ~ Lawrence Krauss

I think that the most likely method for affecting change, and it's a very necessary change in my opinion, is to have as many users as possible storm Vispero as well as Nuance and insist on these changes. Other than adding dictionary exceptions I know of no way to disable these exceptions and there really should be a way. In fact, I honestly question whether these exceptions should even be built into this software but by software I'm referring to Nuance and not JAWS. I'm not certain if contacting Nuance directly will make a difference. However, Vispero is technically the customer of Nuance since I'm sure they have paid a large licensing fee in order to include Nuance voices with their products. Therefore, if a good customer like Vispero advocated for this change because their customers were insisting on it it's perhaps possible that Nuance might respond favorably.

David Goldfield,

Blindness Assistive Technology Specialist

JAWS Certified, 2019

WWW.DavidGoldfield.org

Hi.

 

I’m encountering an issue with Vocalizer and JAWS. It’s substituting what it thinks something should be, and it’s wrong. Let me illustrate.

 

There is a ham radio called the GD-77. Vocalizer says it’s the good 77, and that’s not right. The letters should be spelled out. I tried to do a dictionary entry for the word, but it didn’t work. I also never knew Google had a service called grams mail. This is annoying, and because of it I’m back to good old Eloquence. I prefer Vocalizer’s speech, but not with all the so-called “helpful” abbreviation conversions.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Kevin and Jilly

What did you use in the dictionary?

You could try a regular expression match on:  GD-(\d{1,})    and replace with Gee Dee \1
This should make GD- followed by one or more numeric digits read as Gee Dee followed by the actual number that the string of digits represents.
--

Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 2004, Build 19041  

The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance but to overcome it.
       ~ Lawrence Krauss

Hi.

I’m encountering an issue with Vocalizer and JAWS. It’s substituting what it thinks something should be, and it’s wrong. Let me illustrate.

There is a ham radio called the GD-77. Vocalizer says it’s the good 77, and that’s not right. The letters should be spelled out. I tried to do a dictionary entry for the word, but it didn’t work. I also never knew Google had a service called grams mail. This is annoying, and because of it I’m back to good old Eloquence. I prefer Vocalizer’s speech, but not with all the so-called “helpful” abbreviation conversions.

Thanks in advance.

Kevin and Jilly

On Wed, Sep 16, 2020 at 11:57 AM, Steve Nutt wrote:

Again, Nuance have already included it as a screen reader flag, so it’s up to Vispero to put a switch in the UI.

-
But it is important to note that the responsibility still lies with the synth, not the screen reader, in terms of how it behaves.  And I'll bet that once this ability to pass the flag/switch to the synth is implemented, it's going to result in quite a lot of complaints about it not being selective, and lots of things that one might want or expect to be pronounced "in full" that are abbreviations will be letter-by-letter instead.

There is no winning here.
 
--

Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 2004, Build 19041  

The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance but to overcome it.
       ~ Lawrence Krauss

I’m taking back everything I said on this topic.

Kevin, my Vocalizer Tom Enhanced speaks your example perfectly as g d not good.

 

Which voice are you using exactly?

 

And, I have actually never heard Grahams  mail for gmail.

 

 

 

Richard

"He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself,” and we forget that only grace can break the cycle of ancient hatreds among peoples. (It is notable that while I have regretted not granting grace to others, I’ve never once regretted extending it.)" - Edward Herbert

 

From: main@jfw.groups.io <main@jfw.groups.io> On Behalf Of Kevin Minor
Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2020 8:20 PM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Is there a way to not have Vocalizer substitute what it thinks works for abbreviations?

 

Hi.

 

I’m encountering an issue with Vocalizer and JAWS. It’s substituting what it thinks something should be, and it’s wrong. Let me illustrate.

 

There is a ham radio called the GD-77. Vocalizer says it’s the good 77, and that’s not right. The letters should be spelled out. I tried to do a dictionary entry for the word, but it didn’t work. I also never knew Google had a service called grams mail. This is annoying, and because of it I’m back to good old Eloquence. I prefer Vocalizer’s speech, but not with all the so-called “helpful” abbreviation conversions.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Kevin and Jilly