Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!ogicse!milton!hlab
From: kovach@rtc.atk.com (Pete Kovach)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: Recognizing sign language
Message-ID: <1991May1.170343.10292@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 1 May 91 06:08:08 GMT
References: <1991May1.015034.16232@milton.u.washington.edu>
Sender: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu (Human Int. Technology Lab)
Organization: Alliant Techsystems, Inc., Mpls, MN
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I wrote -

>Recognizing
>finger spelling is fairly useless. Can you imagine talking to someone who
>verbally SPELLED everything - "H-I H-O-W A-R-E Y-O-U". Geeez - a slow 
>conversation to say the least. Also, no one thinks that way and it would
>be a difficult task just to make yourself finger spell everything rather 
>than sign.

Tom Wylie wrote -

-Oh?  And I suppose sitting down at your keyboard, typing out that message,
-was a chore?  Doesn't seem to me sign-spelling stuff would be much
-tougher than typing, just more tedious.


Well, I do know how to finger spell, and can sign a bit and I know that
most individuals that sign do not much care for reading finger spelled
words any more than they have to. It really drags out a conversation. I'm
not saying it is any more difficult than typing - I'd hate to carry on a
conversation in a typed manner any more than I HAD to also. 

I do realize that some must type to converse, or blow into straws, or
whatever. But if they are not forced to by a physical restriction, I do not
want to restrict concersation because it is EASIER to recognize  finger
spelling. Hopefully we can blow todays technology/methods away and do full
gesture/sign recognition.
-- 
Peter Kovach

Sig - We don't need no stinking sig!