Re: Delimiters <-- Re: IIT (Madras) point of view

i18n@... wrote:

>
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >
> > I see exactly what I typed: single guillemets. OTOH when you Windows
> > users type edhs and thorns, I see other things. Mac and Windows standard
> > fonts differ.
>
> Actually, that is probably not a font problem, it may be a difference in
> the encodings...seems I recall a similar issue from a project long ago
> where there were a few differences in the "upper 128". In particular, I
> think the little Apple logo/icon is part of the Mac encoding and clearly
> is not part of the Windows one. There could be a few other differences
> too...could be an unavoidable issue without resorting to a unified
> encoding...

Mac fonts have guillemets where Windows fonts have edh/thorn.

Mac fonts have the diacritics for most European languages (but not the
Polish/Latvian overdot or the underdot that I don't think figures in any
standard roman alphabet), Windows fonts have a few useless dingbats.

Anyway Mac fonts have a few more slots (8?) than Windows fonts.

> > The greater/less than angles already
> > refer to diachronic processes ("becomes"/"comes from"),so it is
>
> > disconcerting to see them used in place of real angle brackets for
> > transliterations.
>
> Interesting! In other disciplines, various symbols are overloaded in
> meaning quite often. Generally, the context makes them clear. I wonder
> if there is something cognitively that linguists have in common with
> each other that makes such overloading disconcerting *and* guides them
> towards a career in linguistics :)
>
> > The closest we have to real angle brackets in standard
> > fonts is single-guillemets.
>
> Not sure why you consider one closer then the other. I understand why
> neither *is* an angle bracket, but I don't understand why the desire to
> avoid overloading (which is reasonable) makes one character arbitrarily
> "closer" then another. Can you elaborate on what the metric is you are
> referring to when you say "closer"?

Oxford had a font in which the angle bracket angle was 90 deg., which is
acceptable but not really good enough. An angle bracket should be
shallow, so that it doesn't take up more space than the other brackets
do.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...