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Thread: State names - use abbreviations or spell out?
Number of posts in this thread: 10 (In chronological order)
From: Don Hinshaw
Date: Tue, Apr 26 2005 4:23PM
Subject: State names - use abbreviations or spell out?
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Hi there,
When I place the following code in my page [<abbr>VA</abbr>] HomePageReader reads it as "vah"
That leads me to believe I should write it "Virginia"
Is there a standard? Would JAWS read it differently, for example?
Thanks very much for any comments.
--
Don Hinshaw
Hinshaw Design Group
http://www.hinshawdesign.com
From: John Foliot - WATS.ca
Date: Tue, Apr 26 2005 4:47PM
Subject: RE: State names - use abbreviations or spell out?
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Don Hinshaw wrote:
>> Hi there,
>> When I place the following code in my page [<abbr>VA</abbr>]
>> HomePageReader reads it as "vah"
>> That leads me to believe I should write it "Virginia"
>> Is there a standard? Would JAWS read it differently, for example?
>>
>> Thanks very much for any comments.
Try: <acronym title="Virginia">VA</acronym>
As for wy acronym instead of abbr, check the archives, this has been around
about a hundred times before, but the simple answer is that IE does not yet
support <abbr>
JF
--
John Foliot = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Web Accessibility Specialist / Co-founder of WATS.ca
Web Accessibility Testing and Services
http://www.wats.ca
Phone: 1-613-267-1983 / 1-866-932-4878 (North America)
From: Don Hinshaw
Date: Tue, Apr 26 2005 5:30PM
Subject: RE: State names - use abbreviations or spell out?
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Thanks John,
I see how IE handles <acronym>, but HPR doesn't behave any differently when it reads the contents of the tag.
Do I need to care about whether or not IE displays a visual for <acronym title="foo> vs. <abbr>?
Or is it with some readers that the title attribute is read and therefore it is preferable?
I'm a little confused as to the benefit of using <acronym>.
Thanks,
Don
John Foliot - WATS.ca wrote:
>
> Try: <acronym title="Virginia">VA</acronym>
> As for wy acronym instead of abbr, check the archives, this has been around
> about a hundred times before, but the simple answer is that IE does not yet
> support <abbr>
>
> JF
> --
> John Foliot = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> Web Accessibility Specialist / Co-founder of WATS.ca
> Web Accessibility Testing and Services
> http://www.wats.ca Phone: 1-613-267-1983 / 1-866-932-4878 (North America)
>
> _______________________________________________
> To manage your subscription, visit http://list.webaim.org/
> Address list messages to = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
>
>
>
>
--
Don Hinshaw
Hinshaw Design Group
510.525.2492
http://www.hinshawdesign.com
From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Tue, Apr 26 2005 9:41PM
Subject: RE: State names - use abbreviations or spell out?
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On Tue, 26 Apr 2005, John Foliot - WATS.ca wrote:
>> Try: <acronym title="Virginia">VA</acronym>
Is "VA" an acronym? For some meanings of "acronym", yes. For the most
natural meaning ('a word originally formed as an acronym, such as
"radar"'), definitely not - and for that meaning, the correct browser
behavior (in speech) would be to pronounce it as a word.
Given the natural meaning, it would be foolish for a speech browser not to
read the acronym itself. It's a word, and should be spoken as the word.
The pragmatist might say that we need not fear that browsers will
generally implement <acronym> the right way, since the element will be
phased out in XHTML 2. But that's far-fetched.
>> As for wy acronym instead of abbr, check the archives, this has been around
>> about a hundred times before, but the simple answer is that IE does not yet
>> support <abbr>
The simple answer is that neither <acronym> nor <abbr> makes much sense,
since the elements lack reasonably clear definitions and the
implementations vary from poor to miserable. IE's lack of all support to
<abbr> is just part of the "poor" side.
Besides, for about 6 billion people or so, "VA" is not a common
abbreviation, or means something quite different from "Virginia".
Thus, use the name, except in contexts where it is conventional to use
"VA", such as in US postal addresses. (When I see such an address
and need to use it, I will just copy it verbatim, and I need not know what
"VA" means - it's just part of a code-like notation.)
-- Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
From: Don Hinshaw
Date: Tue, Apr 26 2005 9:54PM
Subject: RE: State names - use abbreviations or spell out?
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Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
>
> Besides, for about 6 billion people or so, "VA" is not a common
> abbreviation, or means something quite different from "Virginia".
> Thus, use the name, except in contexts where it is conventional to use
> "VA", such as in US postal addresses. (When I see such an address
> and need to use it, I will just copy it verbatim, and I need not know what
> "VA" means - it's just part of a code-like notation.)
>
>
>
I may not have been clear about the context of my question: it is indeed a postal address. But what about the user who doesn't /see/ "VA", but hears it...it might not be clear at all what that meant, no?
It seems to me then that the word should be spelled out for maximum clarity. I thought there might be a universally understood convention, but I realize now that is somewhat silly.
Thanks for everyone's thoughts...it helped me to think about it clearly.
--
Don Hinshaw
Hinshaw Design Group
http://www.hinshawdesign.com
From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Tue, Apr 26 2005 10:55PM
Subject: RE: State names - use abbreviations or spell out?
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On Tue, 26 Apr 2005, Don Hinshaw wrote:
>> I may not have been clear about the context of my question: it is indeed
>> a postal address.
Then the normal use of the data is for verbatim copying.
>> But what about the user who doesn't /see/ "VA", but
>> hears it...it might not be clear at all what that meant, no?
It need not be clear. It's just part of the address.
>> It seems to me then that the word should be spelled out for maximum
>> clarity.
Since "VA" should be copied as such for use on an envelope, for example,
it should be read as literally as possible. The best way to promote this
in the present situation is to use no markup around it.
(If I heard a postal address spoken, with "VA" read as "Virginia", I would
not know that I need to write "VA" for "Virginia". Maybe I would know that
US postal address should contain certain conventional abbreviations, or
codes, of state names rather than names themselves, and maybe I could
find a reference on them. But things are easier when I need not know.)
-- Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
From: Don Hinshaw
Date: Tue, Apr 26 2005 11:05PM
Subject: RE: State names - use abbreviations or spell out?
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Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
>
> (If I heard a postal address spoken, with "VA" read as "Virginia", I would
> not know that I need to write "VA" for "Virginia". Maybe I would know that
> US postal address should contain certain conventional abbreviations, or
> codes, of state names rather than names themselves, and maybe I could
> find a reference on them. But things are easier when I need not know.)
>
>
>
When you put it that way it makes sense..."VA" make equal sense (or not) when one sees it or hears it (in the proper context.)
Thanks,
Don
--
Don Hinshaw
Hinshaw Design Group
http://www.hinshawdesign.com
From: Jim Allan
Date: Wed, Apr 27 2005 8:39AM
Subject: RE: State names - use abbreviations or spell out?
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semantics aside,
JAWS and HPR do a repair for the <abbr> and <acronym> elements to allow them
be read/spoken, based on user configuration, even though IE does not
recognize <acronym>.
JAWS can/must (depending on default setting which seem to change with each
version) be configured to read/speak either <abbr> or <acronym> or both.
For HPR the setting is both or neither.
Anyone know about WindowEyes or SuperNova/HAL?
Jim Allan, Webmaster & Statewide Technical Support Specialist
Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired
1100 W. 45th St., Austin, Texas 78756
voice 512.206.9315 fax: 512.206.9264 http://www.tsbvi.edu/
"I see the Earth. It is so beautiful."--first words spoken by human in
space.
[Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin, from the Vostok 1, April 12, 1961.]
From: Randy Pearson
Date: Fri, Apr 29 2005 9:12AM
Subject: RE: State names - use abbreviations or spell out?
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Returning to the original question, my (novice) understanding was that the
aural style
speak: spell-out;
could be used to assist in this situation to advise screen readers *not* to
"just say vah" below. This seems to make sense; however I don't know if the
modern crop of readers honor that CSS2 rule.
<acronym style="speak: spell-out;" title="Virginia">VA</acronym>
-- Randy
>>
From: Michael Moore
Date: Fri, Apr 29 2005 10:04AM
Subject: Re: State names - use abbreviations or spell out?
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That would be really great except that aural styles are unsupported most if not all platforms and have been deprecated.
Mike
Randy Pearson wrote:
> Returning to the original question, my (novice) understanding was that the
> aural style
>
> speak: spell-out;
>
> could be used to assist in this situation to advise screen readers *not* to
> "just say vah" below. This seems to make sense; however I don't know if the
> modern crop of readers honor that CSS2 rule.
>
> <acronym style="speak: spell-out;" title="Virginia">VA</acronym>