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products, trademarks, building names, as well as glossaries of terms and acronyms. Starting from such lists

doesn’t just save time; it may also help add these items with their official, correct spelling!

The importance of spoken forms

Radio programs often tell their listeners “let us know how to pronounce your name” because some names could

be pronounced in several ways and some are not pronounced “the way they are written” (due to silent letters, for

instance). This is true for more than just names. Acronyms are often pronounced letter by letter, but not always:

ASAP is pronounced "ay sap" by many people. These facts are addressed by an important Dragon feature: the

Spoken Form.

From the Display drop-down list of the Vocabulary Editor, choose “Words with spoken forms only.” Take a

moment to scroll through and look at existing spoken forms; you will get ideas for what kinds of entries warrant

them and how they can be written.

You may add spoken forms to custom entries as well as to existing entries, in order to be able to dictate them as

existing spoken form “copyright sign.”

Note that entries containing symbols, digits, or unusual spacing are particularly likely to warrant a Spoken

Form. If the written form of a word contains any punctuation, consider providing a spoken form so that there is no

doubt as to how the item will be pronounced.

If you add e-mail addresses to the Vocabulary, giving them a Spoken Form can make them quicker to dictate: for

instance, “Amy and John at yahoo dot com” or even just “Amy and John at yahoo” for

AmyT&JohnB@yahoo.com.

Note: Spoken forms must not include punctuation, abbreviations, or symbols. Below are a few examples.