Why
is Gabby's Wordspeller & Phonetic Dictionary exceptional?
(supportive evidence to prove there
is no competitor in the marketplace... anywhere)
Gabby's Wordspeller
& Phonetic Dictionary (condensed) is, and will be for quite
some time, uniquely functional and excels over any digital or book
competitor.
This newly published,
condensed book, "Gabby's Wordspeller & Phonetic Dictionary"
has a methodology designed for ESL, students of English, dyslexic
markets, those whom are challenged with learning, sight or hearing.
The condensed version
of "Gabby's" is a portable desktop paperback that is affordable
to those who truly need the book. People such as THOSE WHO:
- Don't have a computer
- Don't wish to get onto the internet
and perform a lengthy search
- Simply wish to quickly locate a
misspelled word when not at a computer
- Want the suffix of a word (to spell
the ending of the word correctly)
- Want the definition of a prefix
- Cannot locate their word with any
spell checker or dictionary because of its phonetic spelling
The primary purpose
of "Gabby's" is NOT to replace a standard dictionary (although
it will suffice) that differentiates between nouns and verbs but
is intended to be a QUICK pre-spell checker and cross-referencer
(plus a few other things).
For a CONDENSED dictionary
I was only able to accomplish 35,000 commonly used words (and uncommon
words if cross-referenced and needing differentiation). There are
actually, when compared to a standard dictionary, 100,000 words.
There was no room for
proper nouns and due to its condensed nature, required the development
of rules on "how to use this book". "Gabby's Wordspeller"
involves a very small learning curve (just as the thesaurus when
we first started using it) but is so useful in four different respects.
Gabby's performs four
actions that not one standard dictionary performs all of today.
Here's a nice little
comparison between Gabby's unique capabilities when faced before
the Number 1 spell checker on the market, "ASpell Spell Helper".
ASpell is considered the best spell checker and word suggestor on
the international market. The program accesses tens of available
spell checkers and dictionaries to attempt to locate the word you
are trying to spell. Allow me to illustrate below the first three
words that came to my mind which I plugged into this site.
Case scenario; I
am writing an email to my friend who wants to know how the song
is going that I've been working on to perform with my band next
week. I'm attempting to describe the changes I made to the piece
last night which I believe takes the song to the next level for
the audience. I wish to describe short/brief musical strokes.
The first phonetic word I type into Aspell is, "
stukodo" because that's how the word sounds to me.
I think it's spelled this way. After 10 minutes of opening websites
and locating dictionaries I get a list of words that are suggested.
This list is not alphabetized. I must click on each word it might
be, to get to the definition. But...the true, actual word I'm
looking for is not listed...but this I don't know because I don't
know how to spell it. If only I were aware that the correct spelling
I'm looking for is "staccato"...
After several attempts,
my word (therefore my definition)is still not represented by ASpell.
I am given stoccado and sticcado from
a list of 41 words...but no
staccato to choose from. And remember, unbeknownst
to me, I still am not any closer to finding the word I want, but
think I am so I start clicking on the other word choices
from the list. Each click requires that I unblock my "pop-up
blocker" which takes me to some major dictionary for another
list of words. From this list, I start clicking again to go to
individual pages with definitions. After I click to get to a definition
(oops, no, not the right definition), I must click back to the
previous page to that other list again, find another word then
click again, and again, and again (now... where was I?).
All-in-all, I'm not
realizing if any of these dictionaries is actually going to get
me where I want to be. I am hoping I won't get lost and forget
what I was doing before I started all this. I'm 15 minutes into
this now and I haven't found my word and....for heaven's sake...isn't
there an easier way to do this?????
YES, use "Gabby's
Wordspeller", your word can be located in seconds, and here's
why. All the spell-checkers and dictionaries in the world cannot
positively decipher all the phonetic human sounds because a computer
based language cannot hear human based languages. Period. Put accent
on one syllable, then another, then the next again and it changes
everything about the word. Every dialect in every language puts
varying accents on varying vowels and consonants.
For example, "ASpell
Spell Helper" quotes that they use "... 2 or 3 letter
ISO (International Organization for Standardization) code...".
This code is one of the 'ISO 639' varieties. Well, I use that methodology
in Gabby's...it's simple...the first two or three letters. But...where
was staccato in the list of
41 words that was provided by ASpell's results? The first three
letters in staccato is 'sta' isn't it? So when I plugged
in "stukodo" earlier, why wasn't 'sta'
listed? The 'sta' which is what my staccato starts with
wasn't listed. So their methodology of "... 2 or 3 letter ISO
code..." is not fool proof. The ISO 639 types only burgeon
a phonetic system in my opinion.
In "Gabby's",
you will find that "stukodo" is cross-referenced
with two other similar words,' staccato' and 'stoccado'.
You will also find the word you're looking for in less than 20 seconds
in the book. Simple...
The second word I plugged
into "ASpell" was, "kords" because I'm looking for the word quartz and this is how
my dyslexic friend spelled it ("t" and "d" are
often interchanged by those with hearing difficulties who haven't
mastered the English language). Could I find it? NO. In "Gabby's"
you would find that kords will look like this;
kords , cord(s)/
quart(s)/ quartz/ chords
Then I dropped the
'ds' in kords and added a 't' = kort.
I need to go to court tomorrow and I'm looking up the word as I
hear it. Did not find it in ASpell.
In "Gabby's"
you find...
kort , cord/
court/ quart/ chord
In the expanded version
of this Wordspeller I have employed the algorithm I've created in
the condensed version PLUS ++ more. Not only do I employ the "...
2 or 3 letter ISO code..." just as 'ASpell' does, I also employ
the Diane Frank Code. The expounded coding allows that each vowel
will be replaced with all similar vowels, eg; (a, e, i, o, u and
sometimes y) plus those combination of letters (consonants and vowels)
which sound like and are similar to other sounds. Example; quiet "qw, qwu, qu, qua, qa, kw, kwa, kua", all
are similar in sound and would all be represented just like in the
condensed version. The expanded version will become available when
there is a demand for it.
Another linguistic/phonetic
word to play with is quit. Possible combo's are,
"kwe, kwi, qwi, que, qwe, qwi" which produce the same
sound. There are no ISO codes today which employs this along with
the 2 or 3 letter code, which I support factually later in this
briefing.
How about when a challenging
phonetic sound lies in the middle of a word, beyond the first 2-3
letters in the commonly used ISO code that spell checkers use? Take
the word, aqua. Plug "okwu" into 'ASpell'.
So please, for brevity's
sake, go to http://www.aspell.net . and plug in the word above...it's
a fine example.
What I do know is that
if the current computer programs continue adding to its database
all the ways that people misspell a word, the choices of misspellings
will grow and grow, until a person has 10 pages of misspelled words
to choose from. How will this expedite getting them to their word
quickly? It won't.
In Texas, people use
the greeting "hello" but it sounds like "ulo"
or "alo". Or it could be spelled helo or halo.
In which case, if one looked up the word halo in "Gabby's"
they would find the definition to halo as well
as the cross-reference word, hello.
If they looked up helo they would find...simply..."hello" (not
the 41 word list as with 'ASpell'). Because the phonetic sound of helo will always be simply the word hello no matter
what language someone speaks...and doesn't need to be complicated
with ISO 639 and all its sub-references.
As it is currently,
there is no standardized code for phonetics that any dictionary
uses. An excerpt from an ongoing conversation in the standardization
community concerning these phonetic orthographies..
"I agree with the sentiment
for Wikipedia. It is however problematic that the arguments for
the creation of new editions of Wikipedia are not always based
on linguistic but often on political arguments...
...Having a connection to what is
going to be the ISO-639-6 would indeed be beneficial, WiktionaryZ
allows for the modelling of hierarchical relations that is part
of the ISO-639-6 set-up. It being a wiki would allow people to
come up with their arguments for why "their" language
is not how it is perceived by those scientist types .. :) I am
happy to say that we already ask people to create Swadesh lists
for their language/dialect. We already have people interested
in languages like Ripuarian or is it Koelsch in Wikipedia (this
being a big continuum of hard to define dialects). We have already
done some thinking on how to handle these types of non standardised
orthographies." sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montenegrin_language
http://wiktionaryz.org/Category:Language_portals
According to to the
International Phonetic Association (IPA) who has created its own
'sound language', when I asked if they were involved in creating
ISO language based on phonetics responded,
"...Thank you very much for
your enquiry, it comes as a very welcome stimulus. Just
to fill you in: I have been asked (by ISO TC37) to set up a group
of experts together with ..... to address exactly the issue that
you are raising. We are however right at the start of the
activities, and are currently preparing a New Item Proposal where
we have to motivate this need in order to set the process in motion...."
Looking forward to hearing from you
and your research...
The two references
I use above support the fact that the IPA has not created content
to create ISO to equip standard dictionaries and spell-checkers
because they are still in the proposal phase. Therefore existing
software and technology will limp on ahead without them for now.
Thank goodness I put my 10 years into Gabbys which has placed this
book a milestone ahead of the industry. While the giants fight it
out politically as to whom and how they will create the "standards"...Gabby's
is perched to flood the market with what she has already accomplished...her
own standardization.
I have compiled
folders full of surveys/research and statistics/interviews to support
my methodology and/or algorithm (or the Diane Frank code), why it
works and how it's different from any model out there today. Although
I developed the methodology and/or algorithm over 10 years ago as
the result of my collegiate research and surveys, it is still unique
today. I have a degree from the Evergreen State College in communications
and I raised a dyslexic daughter who tells her story on this website.
