7.0498 Rs: Surrealism; OCR for Ancient Greek (3/44)

Elaine Brennan (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Thu, 17 Feb 1994 22:57:11 EST

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 7, No. 0498. Thursday, 17 Feb 1994.


(1) Date: Thu, 17 Feb 94 07:22:20 PST (12 lines)
From: Paul Brians <BRIANS@WSUVM1>
Subject: Teaching Surrealism

(2) Date: Thu, 17 Feb 94 21:37:16 CST (16 lines)
From: "Jim Marchand" <marchand@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: OCR for Ancient Greek

(3) Date: Thu, 17 Feb 94 21:43:34 CST (16 lines)
From: "Jim Marchand" <marchand@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: ancient Greek OCR

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 94 07:22:20 PST
From: Paul Brians <BRIANS@WSUVM1>
Subject: Teaching Surrealism

Although I've never taught a course covering surrealism, I did some work
on the subject in the early 70s, when the lyrics of "psychedelic" rock
provided a convenient entry point for the subject. I think today's
students could probably quickly perceive the links between classic
surrealism and the visual imagery in many of today's more imaginative
rock videos.

Paul Brians, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-5020
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------29----
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 94 21:37:16 CST
From: "Jim Marchand" <marchand@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: OCR for Ancient Greek

I have trained an old Kurzweil 4000 to do Ancient Greek, and it did a good
job. You have to train for each font, of course, and it would probably be
better to use some trainable modern software, e.g. Caere's OmniPage Pro,
which has a really quite simple training program. For proofreading ancient
Greek, WordPerfect's Greek Language Module is quite serviceable. The old
Kurzweil 4000 and the German Optopus can be trained to read almost anything,
including Chinese, if you have time enough. I have a Kurzweil Discover, and
I have been told that the company/ies involved offer trainable software, but
I have been unable to obtain it. It is a great machine, since it is
self-contained to a great extent, but without being trainable it is of
limited use. Nothing comes easy.
Jim Marchand.
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------29----
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 94 21:43:34 CST
From: "Jim Marchand" <marchand@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: ancient Greek OCR

I forgot to mention about ancient Greek. Maybe you wouldn't want to have it
read accents and breathing, or maybe you ought to consider the problems this
entails. I had a colleague who recently wanted to use eilikrineia in a
talk, and I could not tell him whether it had a rough breathing or not,
since only we moderns put those in and it depends in this case on the
"etymology". Or take the case of the Stoic word lekton. It makes all the
difference in the world whether you put the accent on the first syllable,
le/kton "that which is/was, etc. said" or on the second, lekto/n, translated
by St. Augustine and Cicero as "dicibile" (the sayable). The same can be
said for long marks and the like in editions of medieval manuscripts, since
these are inserted by (often ignorant) modern editors. Nemo sine crimine.
Jim Marchand.