[Next Project] Black No More by George Schuyler

[Weijia Cheng]

PG: https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/68811

HT: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/004431136

Repo: https://github.com/weijia-cheng/george-schuyler_black-no-more

[Alex Cabal]

OK! Vince will manage with David reviewing.

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[Weijia Cheng]

There is a radio station with the call sign "WHAT," stylized "W H A T" (see here). I found a previous discussion about radio call signs, but does that mean in this case we should just style it "WHAT" without spaces or semantics, or should we leave it as it was printed? I feel like taking out the spaces wound undermine the pun (and also might cause screen readers to pronounce it as "what").

[Vince]

It’s been my understanding from here (I have no direct or indirect experience with them) that screen readers don’t read all caps as words; that’s one of the reasons we never use them.

Having said that, I’m not necessarily opposed to leaving them as individual letters, but we don’t really have a precedent for that, and if the above is true, I don’t really see a reason to. If the above isn’t true, then leaving the spaces may make sense, although at that point I wonder if we should tag them as graphemes. Don’t you love edge cases?

Robin, do you know, would a reader read WHAT as the word, or as individual letters?

[Robin Whittleton]

Super-wide question unfortunately, with no great answer. E.g. I used to work on the (stylised) GOV.UK website, and screen readers would consistently pronounce it “Governor UK” as the single full stop made them think it was an acronym.

Seeing as a sighted reader might read it as ”what” I don’t think it’s particularly bad, especially given the context and the US convention for four letter radio station names starting with W. I’d say let’s just wrap it in an abbreviation and let screen readers make their own pronunciation choices.

-Robin

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[Alex Cabal]

Call signs are not abbreviations. Normally we would set them in all caps
because it's typically obvious from context/spelling that it's a call
sign. In this case it might not be obvious because it's spelled like a
real word. So if it's not obvious from context, you could add spaces to
make it clear that in this case, we're not just capitalizing the English
word WHAT

On 3/6/26 12:51 PM, Robin Whittleton wrote:
> Super-wide question unfortunately, with no great answer. E.g. I used to
> work on the (stylised) GOV.UK website, and screen readers would
> consistently pronounce it “Governor UK” as the single full stop made
> them think it was an acronym.
>
> Seeing as a sighted reader might read it as ”what” I don’t think it’s
> particularly bad, especially given the context and the US convention for
> four letter radio station names starting with W. I’d say let’s just wrap
> it in an abbreviation and let screen readers make their own
> pronunciation choices.
>
> -Robin
>
>> On 6 Mar 2026, at 19:46, Vince <vr_se...@letterboxes.org> wrote:
>>
>> It’s been my understanding from here (I have no direct or indirect
>> experience with them) that screen readers don’t read all caps as
>> words; that’s one of the reasons we never use them.
>>
>> Having said that, I’m not necessarily opposed to leaving them as
>> individual letters, but we don’t really have a precedent for that, and

>> if the above is true, I don’t really see a reason to. If the above /
>> isn’t/ true, then leaving the spaces may make sense, although at that

>> point I wonder if we should tag them as graphemes. Don’t you love edge
>> cases?
>>
>> Robin, do you know, would a reader read WHAT as the word, or as
>> individual letters?
>>
>>> On Mar 6, 2026, at 12:19 PM, 'Weijia Cheng' via Standard Ebooks
>>> <standar...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> There is a radio station with the call sign "WHAT," stylized "W H A

>>> T" (see here <https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?
>>> id=uc1.32106002143938&seq=174>). I found a previous discussion
>>> <https://groups.google.com/g/standardebooks/c/NHI3CGEB0NI/m/p91-
>>> op2IDAAJ> about radio call signs, but does that mean in this case we

>>> should just style it "WHAT" without spaces or semantics, or should we
>>> leave it as it was printed? I feel like taking out the spaces wound
>>> undermine the pun (and also might cause screen readers to pronounce
>>> it as "what").
>>
>>
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[Weijia Cheng]

Ok, I think I am going to keep it as "W H A T" since that was how it was originally printed.

[Weijia Cheng]

I assigned myself Still Life in Gray. The silhouettes are evocative of the concept of whiteness and the abstract style works well with the more science fiction aspects of the book.

[Weijia Cheng]

David, this is ready for review: https://github.com/weijia-cheng/george-schuyler_black-no-more

[David]

Okay, noted! :) I should be able to get to it over the weekend.

[David]

Typically great job, Weijia! Just some small things for you to look at.

[David]

This is now ready for you, Alex.

https://github.com/weijia-cheng/george-schuyler_black-no-more

[Alex Cabal]

OK, looks good! I've released it, thanks!

On 3/14/26 7:52 AM, David wrote:
> This is now ready for you, Alex.
> https://github.com/weijia-cheng/george-schuyler_black-no-more
>

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