Spoken punctuationvoice commands
Spoken punctuation is saying the name of a mark or symbol, like "comma", "open paren", or "new paragraph", and having the dictation tool type the symbol instead of the word. The broader set of such phrases is usually called spoken commands.
Speech has no punctuation, so a dictation tool has to get it from somewhere. For prose, a formatting pass can infer most of it from the rhythm of the sentence. For anything exact, a terminal, a spreadsheet formula, a bracketed aside, inference is not good enough, and the only reliable way to get a specific character is to ask for it by name.
The set of commands a tool understands, and whether each one is resolved by a fixed rule or by a model guessing, is the difference between a tool you can use in a terminal and one you cannot.
What a command set covers
Punctuation: period, comma, question mark, colon. Symbols: dash, underscore, dollar sign, at sign, hash. Pairs: open and close paren, bracket, brace, and quotes, ideally closing themselves. Structure: new line, new paragraph, tab. Case: camel case, snake case, all caps, for the next word or phrase. Emoji by name. And an escape hatch for saying the word itself, "literally comma", when you mean the word and not the mark.
Rules, not a model
A command should map to exactly one output, every time, on every machine. That means a lookup, not an inference: "dash dash force" is --force by rule, and a model never sees it. Rule-based commands can be published in full, tested, and trusted in a terminal. Model-resolved commands are usually right, and "usually" is one broken flag away from a bad afternoon.
When commands should be on
Always, in terminals and code editors, where there is no other way to type a symbol by voice. Optionally, in prose, where a formatting pass punctuates for you and a spoken "comma" in an ordinary sentence would otherwise become a mark by accident. Commands are usually one language, most often English, because a half-understood command in the middle of a sentence is worse than none.
In Flit
Flit ships more than 60 commands and 115 spoken emoji names, every one resolved by rule, published in full, always on in terminals and optional everywhere else.
The complete command reference →Questions
Fair questions.
How do I dictate punctuation?
Say its name: "comma", "period", "question mark", "new paragraph". In prose, a good tool also infers most punctuation from the sentence, so you only need to say it when you want something specific.
How do I say a symbol like a dash or a bracket?
By name: "dash", "underscore", "open paren", "close bracket", "dollar sign". In a tool built for it, pairs close themselves and "dash dash" produces the double dash used in command flags.
What if I want the word “comma” and not the mark?
Say "literally comma", or the tool’s equivalent escape phrase. In prose apps where commands are optional, the plain word usually goes through as a word anyway.
Where this shows up on flit.fyi
Related terms
