An interesting question nepture, but to be honest one I think where the ultimate answer will depend more on the individual themselves than any sort of universal truth about blind/vi people.

Myself, sinse I have remaining vision, I am not too keen on just! the audio without the pictures. I enjoy audio description, but only in a conventional film where I can also use my site to see what's going on.

for me, the audio description serves the purpose of both highlighting details which I visually may miss, eg, designs, furniture, or details not obvious in the context of what is happening, and especially in fast action sequences, so there is a lot of mileage in me seeing a film like troi or transformers with audio description, as visually about the most I could tell in for instance a sword fight is that someone was being hit, and possibly, who was winning.

The pirates films therefore, were great to watch with the description, especiallyt for small details I happened to miss and some of the sillier points, ---- for instance in Pirates Ii, i probably wouldn't have understood the fight in the revolving mill wheel without the description mentioning it, all I would've got is that the fight was occurring in some sort of moving vehicle.

Also, small gestures that I may miss, such as while I fully got, through a combination of resedual vision, interpretation, music and voice that Elizabeth was less than keen on Jack Sparro's company, specific moments such as when sparrow steps forward and she recoils from his bad breath I would'e missed.

As an interesting point, this is also why I like the starwars films, sinse it's one of the few times  sword fight is fully visible to me as Light sabers are fairly easy to see and also to tell who is who via the colour.

For descriptions, I actually enjoy reading descriptions, and find the modern trend of writers like Eoin Colfer (I've just finished reading his stuff), of basically writing books like glorified play scripts very disapointing.

This is why some writers I've really enjoyed have been people like Mervin Peake, Arthur conan doyle, Samual Taylor coleridge, Gean wolfe and more recently Iam M. banks, Steven King (in his modern moments), , Tad williams, ----- not to mention Tolkien, who have a highly descriptive style which applies to all senses, not merely just writing dialogue and the odd action scene, --- description is something I do in my own writing as well.

As to personal descriptions, well I'm a litle complicated. Firstly, I am synaesthesic. I therefore associate most things with a mixture of colour and tactile sensation. This also counts people. This association is highly specific, and very hard to articulate. It's also worth noting, that while I cannot see facial expression or body language unless it's extremely! obvious, ---- eg, slamming a fist upon a table, i do use what I think of as emotional sense.

This gives me a sort of general impression, ---- usually synaesthesic of what a person is thinking or feeling at a time. I'm not exactly sure what this is.

it might be just a summation of all clues I get, whether verbal, or none verbal into a general sense I can work on. A friend of mine thinks it's theramones.

Someone once suggested it was some sort of esp or "sensing personal oras", ---- though I'm more scheptical about that myself (I don't rule it out, but I don't think it's neccessarily true either). nevertheless it is what I chiefly use in order to get on with people socially, and it does tend to work quite well.

it's also worth noting though that like most Vi people. I cannot make eye contact. This might not sound a big deal but it is. Getting someone's attention in a crowd, indeed having people in a crowd realize I am elegeable for a conversation is quite difficult, and in fact I tend to avoid very crowded or noisy situations if I can for that reason. Mostly I get on with people when i can talk to them personally one to one or in a small group of three or four.

I'll try though to honestly describe some people I know.

firstly, my brother.

He's slightly smaller than me, and also slightly plumper with very dark hair. while I know he wears glasses like I do, I can rarely see these unless I'm standing very close to him. Obviously, I've seen him wearing lots of dfferent clothes, but I usually think of him wearing something that I'd regard as formal or even military, such as a patterned shirt and creem trousers, if not actually a sute (which he often wears for work). I associate my brother with a rich, scarlet red and a hard, smooth sensation like polished wood.

I would think of him as highly compitant, volatile and abrupt, someone who weighs people up the instant he meets them. He's very! able to be unpleasant to people while being perfectly chalming, someone who's anger you want to avoid, but someone who it's extremely good to have on your side.

Bare in mind though, that my brother is a criminal solicitor, a highly gifted stratogist and games player (he's a world class Ccg and chess player and has been British champion on several occasions), and generally very good at what he does, if rather intense.

Now, a friend. This is hard, sins most of my friends I'm extremely close to, ---- indeed one of them I think of as my sister, but I'll try and think of a friend I know less well.

I will describe one of my friends' who I'll call s in case she ever checks this forum. My friend is someone I've known sinse I did my degree and someone I've gone to visit and stayed with on several occasions. She's taller than me, but not what I'd call slim, and also wears glasses. her hair is dark and slightly long. I usually think of her wearing a long grey overcoat and a dark skirt, sinse this is something she often wore when i knew her during my degree.

In terms of colour, i'd associate her with a deep, midnight blue shot through with a glossy grey, and a feeling like cold wind.

There has always been a distance around her, a sense of "this far, and no further" I understand the reason for this sinse she has a psychological issue which she has shared with me, and also which has stopped her from getting a job, though she is highly qualified in computer science, works voluntarily doing tech support at a charity and is also doing a masters in creative writing.

The thing I think of most with my friend S is a sort of honest, respectful distance. I am aware she has shared important things about herself with me, as I have, but there is always a sense of give and take. We can be perfectly honest, but in a very polite way. Sh can be funny (in fact she's a huge comedy fan), but there is always a sort of core of distance to her. I am also conscious though that she affords me the same respect as I afford her, and that she will not require me to give more of myself, my time, or anything else than I am willing to. This makes things betwene us quite streight forward.

Lastly, while as a phd student who spends most time working alone I don't have! any co workers ;D, I'll try and describe someone from my light opera society who is new this year and who I've only just met.

R is sort of roughly the same hight as me with dark hair, and usually I've seen her wearing something white, or something dark like a jumper with a white sirt underneath. I associate her with a sort of orange yellow colour shot through with green and a fluttering, cracling but also slightly flat sensation.

She is quite young, about 19, and is currently playing the lead soprano role in the Grnad Duke, ---- the Gilbert and sullivan oppereta we're doing.

She has a sense of fragility about her, but at the same time a sense of extraversion. she's slightly nervous about the part (something I can here in her singing), despite being a qualified singer, and also has had some sort of health issue. in conversation she tends to be adept and friendly, but at the same time there is a slight defensiveness, and a sense she does not want to go too far out of her circle. I know for instance she's got a fairly perminant boyfriend, whether this is the issue I'm not sure. She is fairly inteligent, but not extraodinarily so, and also while willing to try some things outside her experience, is not completely free of genda sterriotypes, she has referd to herself as "a girl" in the social sense on several occasions (something many of my more usual friends who tend to have already kicked social sterriotypes don't do), though it didn't take her too long to get over the "waaaaa! he's blind" syndrome, ---- something which the vast majority of people I meet tend to go through, and may or may not get out of (england not being the most forward looking society where disability relations are concerned).

We may or may not become better friends in the future, something I'm not sure about, we'll just see.

Hopefully this is more enlightening. I freely admit my synaesthesia and my emotional sense are a bit weerd, ---- probably a lot weerd, but this is generally how I work things, and how I think of people. So hopefully this gives an idea aobut me, even if not about Vi people in general.

well me personally, i have no vision.
so, the way i describe someone is different!
because, i could basicly describe an online friend the same as a friend i have known for longer.
so lets see,
my best friend rhodri!
he's tall, about 6 foot 1.
he's brawd, i can tell this after the many brawls we've had
he's got a very funny personality, isn't shy of telling people what he thinks, but is not one to argue!
he also is one to have on your side, but i wouldn't dare get on his wrong side.  i've never experienced the. wwooow he's blind thing with him.
Well, he probably went through it for the year that i knew him when we weren't friends. But then we started hanging out 4 years back and he never even started with the hole thing, baring in mind he was 12 at the time, i  thought this quite good.
He's always on my side, telling people about equalaty, and is curious about how i do things.
He's interested in audio games, and loves audio quake, he plays  with me sometimes, but nether the less, call of duty black-ops normally gets the vote .
he's quite protective, where he'll  take my arm, even when i know  the area i'm in perfectly well.
For example, in school, i can walk around  the hole place on my own fine.
But he still guides me, and i just dont have the heart to tell him to stop, so i wont!

As for someone i dont know so well.
There's a guy in my business class.
Ollie bell!
he's huge, about six foot 4.
thin, and has a   big group of friends around him,
Although he talks to me quite a lot, we dont do much together,
But we speak online extensively, and he's also very interested in the hole equalaty thing.
He will atempt to get me into conversations with his friends frequently, and he's one of the only people, (apart from my friends) who would do this!
i hope that's good enough.
see i cant  describe their apearance, apart from hight and how broad/thin they are!

These were some very interesting posts, if I do say so myself!    I have often wondered how a VI individual would describe someone especially if they have always been blind as I believe is the case with you Robla.  Please correct me if that isn't the case though.  The mainstream world relies so heavily on sight that our language is almost completely dedicated to it.  When I stop to think about it, I actually have difficulty coming up with descriptive words that are not associated with sight!

Basically this preference in language puts you guys at a huge disadvantage in 2 ways.  First off, there just aren't many words or phrases that can fit how you would want to describe someone.  With sight there is almost always a word that perfectly fits what you want to express in a description, but without sight it seems like you have to stop a lot to figure out ways to assemble different words to hopefully get close to what you want to say.

The other disadvantage is that the person on the receiving end doesn't necessarily know exactly what you mean by your cobbled together description.  Please don't misunderstand and take this as down playing any of your descriptions!  It is not my intention to make a VI description seem any less important than a sighted one.  The point I am trying to make is that the lack of language requires a visually impaired person to be far more creative and clever when describing some one or some thing.  I find that terribly fascinating!    It shifts the writing away from "a science" and toward "an art".

Aprone, I'm slightly confused as to what you mean by "visual language" being so blatant in description.

Even when i'm describing something I have absolutely no visual idea of, ---- such as facial or eye expression, I simply use my synaesthesic impression of a person.

Takea description like "smiled" or "sneared" I have no idea what these practically look like, but I have very clear ideas what these "feel" like, so I know to what they are referring, in fact this is how I cope with facial expressions on stage, even though I do not have any conscious idea of controlling my facial muscles to create ---- for instance, a look of horror, I simply think myself into feeling that emotion, and according to people my face follows sute.

Also remember lots of concepts, weight, mass, construction, material composition and position are entirely free of visual bias.

When i was in egypt for instance with a group of blind people, most of the details and descriptions of the pyramids were quite accessible and just as applicable (one chap who was! totally blind from birth was amazed at the hight of the columns at carnak), indeed probably the only thing which was really out site wise was the plasterwork in the tombs (something I had a fair degree of trouble seeing myself).

While I see your point, my problem is that the only words which i can think of which are purely visual in context are those associated only with the visual medium, such as names of colours or qualities of brightness.

Words like gloomy, grungy, even sunn, can apply equally well to atmosphere, mood or setting as they can to associated colours, as well as states such as weather.

In one series by Anne Mcafry for instance, the main characters' boyfriend constantly refers to her as "sunny" not because she walks in a perpetual bubble of sunlight, but for her general disposition and affect on him.

I don't think it's really a linguistic problem, rather there seems to be something of a modern trend to write books that are a lot like tv scripts which simply give details of what would be seen on tv pluss a bit of dialogue, rather than giving people's actual experience, ---- even some of the earlier harry potter books are like this in places (though Jk rowling does stop this tendency later on).

Look at books written before television where only describing something in a realistic way would be regarded as a great feat, ---- Joules vern is a good example of this actually. His books don't seem much now sinse basically they're "oh look! weerd machines, creatures etc" with not loads of plot, but at the time they were regarded as extremely fantastical and absorbing.

For synaesthesia I actually do know what Cae means by colour impressions of the letters of a name, though for me this would generally only persist until i'd known the person long enough to get a more generally synaesthesic impression of them which rather eclipses their name, though Ie willing to bet my letter colour associations are totally different from Cae's.

Rather reminds me of arguements I have with my mum about whether Monday is dark brown or green ;D.

Dark, I think we've started heading in separate directions lol.  Our examples are using the same English words but are focusing on their different meanings.  Sadly the English language likes to use the same word for multiple meanings.  If you are referring to "Sunny" as it applies to a personality then I certainly agree it is not a visual description.  This would also apply to the word "Green" if it were being used as the emotion jealousy or "Yellow" when describing cowardly.  Apart from cartoons who use word-play to show the actual colors yellow and green in those situations, there really aren't any similarities between "Green" the color and "Green" the emotion.  They just happen to be spelled and sound exactly the same.  I think these multiple meanings will make this conversation far too confusing lol.  Oh well, I'm pretty sure I was just pulling us off of Neptune's original topic anyways. 

Cx2, I can see how that is a bit annoying to have the speaker actually Tell you what you just heard, lol.

It could be just me but I found the Fraser example to be rather... subjective to say the least.

In your Torchwood example it would be entirely appropriate to have a description perhaps along the lines of "there is a slow, sorrowful trickle of sand from Jack's fingers." In Fraser however it was an overinflated description for a small comedic point. I suppose it's a matter of how significant the point is, when it is simply someone giving a smug grin it feels excessive to give it a long sentence.