On Sat, 12 Jan 2019 10:57:26 +0000 (GMT) Julian Bradfield via Unicode <unicode@unicode.org> wrote:
> It's also fundamentally misguided. When I _italicize_ a word, I am > writing a word composed of (plain old) letters, and then styling the > word; I am not composing a new and different word ("_italicize_") that > is distinct from the old word ("italicize") by virtue of being made up > of different letters. And what happens when you capitalise a word for emphasis or to begin a sentence? Is it no longer the same word? > I think the VS or combining format character approach *would* have > been a better way to deal with the mess of mathematical alphabets, > because for mathematicians, *b* is a distinct symbol from b, and while > there may be correlated use of alphabets, there need be no connection > whatever between something notated b and something notated *b*. Perhaps the influence of school has lingered too well, but I would be very uncomfortable with such a lack of connection. The idea that *b* is a vector and _b_ is its magnitude has stuck well. Italicisation on the other hand, is a confirmation that something is a symbol, and naturally disappears in handwriting. Richard.