Re: Swastika to be banned by Microsoft?
A rose by any other name The figure has other names besides swastika. In heraldry, The figure is called a fylfot or sometimes a gammidion (four gammas arrayed). It has many variations as to orientation, direction, and using bent arms or knees as the gamma. It's common to see an array of three as in the arms of Sicily or the Isle of Man. Seán Glen
Re: Inappropriate Proposals FAQ
How about symbols from electronics and hydraulics? Schematic symbols. Wm Seán Glen - Original Message - From: Suzanne M. Topping To: Unicode (E-mail) Sent: Tuesday, 02 July, 2002 7:01 Subject: Inappropriate Proposals FAQ I have a few ideas for fictional proposals to use as examples (my roomlayout idea, and Mark's 3-D Mr. Potato Head representation), but I coulduse another one or two if anyone feels creative. Thanks in advance for your input,Suzanne ToppingBizWonk Inc.[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Chromatic font research
I, myself, am fascinated with this thread. I concur with Peter. Our system of characters grew out of a di-chromatic world. Every phase in the history of writing was affected by the tools at hand and was dated by it. The word for scribe in hieroglyphics is a pen and (two colour) ink horn. We wouldn't recognise it today until someone pointed it out. Cuneiform has the distinctive wedge shape because of the specific specie of plant used. Serifs came about through experimentation because carving in stone tended to crack unless it was done that way. Something about relieving the stresses in the material, I think. The indent for paragraphs came about from books being printed and leaving room for an illustrator to add the versals, decorated initials. I've read about font designers having to accommodate the differences in the type of press. Letterpress left a visible dent in the paper that added to the "colour" or total ratio of black to white of the text area. If the same exact font were chosen for web offset printing, the ratio would be off. I'm sure Michael could elaborate on the design of fonts for electronic media. My point is this. There is a cultural inertia to use a modern technology to accommodate an earlier form. I've heard it described as "instant ivy". "Ye olde shoppe" on the High Street. Unicode bowed to some of that pressure by including heritage characters like dingbats. The purpose of defining character glyphs is the goal. Leave the artistic expression of those glyphs to the font designers. There has always been the urge to embellish the text with a bit of colour, but that's what it is, an artistic embellishment. As soon as it's legislated, artists will try to do it differently just to be different. P.S. Petra Sancta was a Jesuit who devised a shorthand called "tricking" of recording heraldic shields in black and white. The demand for such books outstripped the ability to paint them in. It was later adapted to other things with a limited palette like vexillology, the study of flags. P.P.S. The design of heraldry and of flags grew out of the need to be seen on a battlefield or at sea. This dictated the use of bold, easily recognisable colours and patterns. The embellishments people employed in their armorial achievement soon grew so cluttered as to render it unrecognisable. Wm Seán Glen
Re: Shamrock
I concur with Michael, a shamrock, as a symbol for Ireland, is not a clover, even though they may be in the same genus. It would be like confusing the smiley face for Mr Yuck. Although, as a symbol of Éire, I still prefer "Azure, a harp Or, strung argent" Wm Seán Glen - Original Message - From: Otto Stolz To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, 29 January, 2002 8:14 Subject: Re: Shamrock Mr. Everson said:> At some stage I will be requesting a shamrock, as > this is used in a number of dictionaries as a symbol denoting > horticulture.What about U+2663?Best wishes, Otto Stolz
Re: An Azeri disk
Both the prophet whose name the potter honoured, and the potter himself, because of a small piece of work, are part of my daily life. "Who is the potter and who is the pot?" From the Rubyiat Seán
Re: C with bar for "with"
The lower case 'c' with either and overscore or an underscore is used in medical terminology. It means "with" and comes from the Latin "cum". The English version is lower case 'w' with a solidus "w/" Seán
Re: YO, ho ho, and a bottle of vodka
How about a monument to Spurious Rufus who came up with the letter G Seán - Original Message - From: Marco Cimarosti To: 'Michael Everson' ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, 30 October, 2001 10:39 Subject: RE: YO, ho ho, and a bottle of vodka Oh, well, we Italians will then erect a monument to Giangiorgio Trissino,the man who invented letters J and V!_ Marco> -Original Message-> From: Michael Everson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]> Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2001 5:23 PM> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: YO, ho ho, and a bottle of vodka> > > A town honours one of its own: > http://www.sptimes.ru/archive/times/717/top/t_5031.htm> -- > Michael Everson *** Everson Typography *** http://www.evertype.com> 15 Port Chaeimhghein Íochtarach; Baile Átha Cliath 2; Éire/Ireland> Telephone +353 86 807 9169 *** Fax +353 1 478 2597 (by arrangement)>
Re: Weird characters that are hard to pigeonhole. (was: how to tell japanese from chinese)
I thought the medieval Irish Scribes borrowed it from the Hebrew. Se¨¢n - Original Message - From: Marco Cimarosti To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Sent: Friday, 08 June, 2001 10:50 Subject: RE: Weird characters that are hard to pigeonhole. (was: how to tell japanese from chinese) Is there a codepoint for MEDIEVAL AMPERSAND, which looks like modern DIGIT SEVEN, so much so that in modern books DIGIT SEVEN is used to transcribe it?Yeah! That's U+204A (TIRONIAN SIGN ET). I thought it was modern Irish; is it medieval?_ Marco
Re: Provenance of the Unicode Standard and of statements
I'm going to de-lurk here to respond to William. (1) Private Use Area is just that; private. I work for Boeing and we might use very technical glyphs that would only apply to the business we do. We could make a font, assign them codepoints in the PUA and use them on the Boeing intraweb and feel confident that they're not going to conflict with other applications inside or outside the business at hand. What you describe as assigning general guidelines to "rational segments" of the PUA is just a muddy way of assigning codepoints within the PUA. (2) This is a public forum held for and moderated by the Unicode Consortium. I am on equal footing with the all of the other participants, regardless of their various day jobs. My opinions, are just that — opinions, and stand on their own merits. Rick, Roozbah, Mario, Ken, yourself and whoever are in the same boat my friend. Thanx Wm Seán Glen
Re: On the possibility of guidance code points for the Private Use Area
Couldn't one just embed the glyphs that aren't specified by Unicode along with the text? Wm Seán Glen From: William Overington Sent: Wednesday, 25 April, 2001 3:40 Subject: Re: On the possibility of guidance code points for the Private Use Area I wrote previously:I am not suggesting that a piece of software trying to read a plain unicodetext document would need to look things up at a registry nor then accessthe internet. Such a piece of software would just work using a local file.Peter Constable asked:How do you get that local file? How do you know where to get it, and merelythe fact that your supposed to look for it? That's part of what's involvedin your suggestion of a registry, and my real point is that at some pointyou and I have to have a prior agreement.I reply:The local file is the file of unicode plain text that the software is tryingto read.The prior agreement that the original author of the file of unicode plaintext needs to have with the person seeking to read that file of unicodeplain text need not be between the two people directly.For example, in everyday use of the English language, if I write the wordhorse then you have a knowledge of what that word means, even though you andI as individuals have not agreed with each other what the word means. Thatis because the word is a very well known part of the vocabulary of English.I feel that a simple method is needed so that if a file of plain unicodetext is being processed by a computer and the file contains character codesfrom the private use area then there is a straighforward way for thecomputer system doing the processing to find out the meanings of thosecharacters from the private use area that are being used using informationcontained within the file itself.There are, I suggest, essentially two broad classes of ways to achieve thisresult. One class is of ways that are defined within the private use areasthemselves, the other class is of ways that have some assistance from one ormore codes that are not in the private use area.I have, thus far, suggested only a way that is entirely within the privateuse area itself. Others have suggested the use of a private use areainterpretation tag, which would require the Unicode Consortium to help solvethe problem.I like the idea of the tags, I feel that that approach would be far moreflexible than the system that I first suggested. However, there have beenvarious reasons given as to why the use of tags could be a problem.Accordingly I am now making a suggestion as to how to proceed and will starta derived thread to state it.William Overington25 April 2001
