stammering with ellipses; interrupted words

[rsherwood12]

Hello,

I am working on a book where stammering/speech hesitation is represented with ellipses instead of hyphens ("Y ... yes", "th ... thank" versus "Y-yes", "th-thank"). The stammering rules say not to use the letter sign, but in this case the reader could misread the text "you ... yes" because it's not connected by a hyphen. Would it be correct to use the letter indicator with single letters and to uncontract letter groups that correspond to a short-form word? Would I need to be concerned with having the letter or letters before and after the ellipsis match ("th ... thank" or "th ... ?ank")?

Also, when a word is interrupted ("You said you w--"), would the letter sign be used before the single letter?

Thanks,
Rebecca

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[Anonymous]

Hi Rebecca,
Could you please attach a copy of the print pages?
Thanks so much--Saralyn

[Anonymous]

Sure, sorry I didn't think to do that. Attached is a jpeg of two paragraphs with three examples:

Th...thank
c...came
ha...have

Best,
Rebecca

[rsherwood12]

Thank you for the example.
It’s so important to see the actual print in order to get a complete picture of the situation in question.

What an interesting situation and excellent question!
Even if the letter indicator was used before the first letter(s), and brailled as an ellipsis with a space before and after, it would completely lose the idea of a stammered word. It would read as 3 separate items: a single letter; an ellipsis (as a hesitation or omission); new word.

c … came

This is one of those situations when we have to reference the rules/guidelines we do have, then use good judgment to create braille that best represents the print concept.
I see two potential options.

Option 1:
Substitute hyphens for the ellipsis and follow the rules for contraction usage as stated in EBAE Rule II.13--Stammering, etc. Then insert a TN in an appropriate place to explain the change.

Option 2:
Use three dot 3’s (ellipsis) unspaced as shown in EBAE Rule I.7a--Omitted letters. However, since these are not missing letters I would follow the rules for contraction usage as stated in EBAE Rule II.13-- Stammering, etc.

Personally I believe the main concept here is that these are stammered words and would use Option 1.
You’ll have to decide what works best for your particular situation.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.
--Saralyn

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