re: little lines below

From: Alain LaBont\i\ (alb@riq.qc.ca)
Date: Tue Oct 13 1998 - 10:43:28 EDT


At 06:53 98-10-13 -0700, Michael Everson wrote:
>Ar 04:56 -0700 1998-10-13, scríobh Alain:
>>A 02:35 98-10-13 -0700, Michael Everson a écrit :
>>>Be that as it may, the French use the DEGREE SIGN and they compose it with
>>>N or n + °. It even looks like that in _Dictionnaire des règles
>>>typographiques_.
>>
>>[Alain] :
>>Correct.
>
>Bad typographic taste if you ask me. I mean "n°" might well mean 'en
degrees'.

[Alain] :
With all due respect, it is like saying that a red wall is white just
because it is lighted by a red light in the dark. (;

If one wants to say N DEGREES, in French, like in English, one will
explicitly writes so, not write "n°" (btw in French, when we want to write
two words, we write a space in between, i.e. "n °" could, very
hypothetically, mean EN DEGREES).

"N°" or "n°" is definitely used only to indicate "numéro" in French. But if
one wants to use a red light in the dark to understand something else in
limited and absolutely out-of-this-world conditions, this situation is
always theoretically possible, and part of the [sci-]fiction domain (;

Alain LaBonté
Québec



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