On 7/10/2012 5:35 PM, Mark Davis ☕ wrote:
The main point is that asserting a general preference in an annotation
for ∶ to express a ratio, as Asmus had in his formulation, is simply
wrong and counterproductive. (We are not going to change the world's
usage from : to ∶ by fiat; and and the glyphic difference is quite
subtle, and missing in a great many fonts. Compare that with the
difference between hyphen-minus and minus, which is much more
pronounced, and much better carried across fonts.)
The most that we could say is that in certain mathematical contexts ∶
is preferred to : for expressing ratios, not that it is generally
preferred.
I don't see any problem in amending the proposed annotations
U+003A COLON
* also used to denote division or scale, for that usage 2236 : RATIO is
preferred in mathematical use
U+2236 RATIO
* Used in preference to 003A : to denote division or scale in
mathematical use
however, like the use of curly quotes over straight quotes, certain
preferences do apply for high-end typography irrespective of whether
"fallback" characters are or are not widely used for lower quality
documents.
A./
