rfc: speakup's character and punctuation processing

[William Hubbs]

All,

speakup does a number of things to have all of the characters and
punctuation marks pronounced the same way for all of the synthesizers it
supports instead of allowing the synthesizers to process them.

The disadvantage of this is primarily obvious for internationalization.
We are forcing English pronunciations instead of allowing the
synthesizer to pronounce things in the correct language.

For the softsynth, there is a direct option, which  passes things
straight to the synthesizer.  I am wondering though if we should  just
get rid of all of the character and punctuation processing that is part
of speakup and allow the synthesizer to handle this?

This is just an idea right now.  I am not planning on doing this without
discussion; I am wondering at this point what others think.

So, your input is welcome.

Thanks,

William