Level indicates at what symbol level the character is spoken, and
preserve controls whether the symbol is actually sent to the synthesizer
or not, so for the bang/exclamation point, its replacement is spoken at
symbol level all and is always sent to the synthesizer so it can decide
to handle the punctuation mark in the way it chooses. The sentence
ending version of the period is used at the end of sentences, and the
other period entry is used for everything else.


On 7/2/2018 4:35 PM, Brian Vogel wrote:

It's also not entirely clear to me what the "level" and "preserve"
settings mean and how they interact with each other and how order in
the list might influence things as well.

Since the sentence ending period (dot) and exclamation point (bang)
are noted as level all and preserve always, while further down we have
the period character with dot (the pronunciation) with level some and
preserve never and the exclamation point character with bang with
level all and preserve never it's really unclear to me what one would
have to do to get context specific pronunciation.

When you throw in decimal point, which shows no actual character, just
the name decimal point, things become more unclear.

I generally use "bang" for the exclamation point only in the context
of programming or when writing out a keystroke sequence that requires
its use, but "exclamation point" when talking about it as a
punctuation mark.

When it comes to the period character it's period as punctuation in
written English or other natural language, dot in things like URLs or
other classification systems, and point in numbers.

--

*Brian**-*Windows 10 Home, 64-Bit, Version 1803, Build 17134

/Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a
well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong./

~ H.L. Mencken, AKA /The Sage of Baltimore/