From: Andreas Prilop (nhtcapri@rrzn-user.uni-hannover.de)
Date: Fri Jun 16 2006 - 11:57:46 CDT
On Thu, 15 Jun 2006, John Hudson wrote:
> The point I have been making is that in the context of type
> designs that use oblique monolinear quotations marks,
> the direction of slant may be either to the left or right for U+2018.
I disagree. The majority of type designers is not aware of the
different quotation marks in Unicode. They think of alt+0145 and
alt+0146 as the only high quotation marks.
As I wrote earlier, your argumentation is perfectly valid in a
restricted 8-bit character set such as cp1252, where there are
only two high quotation marks. Your only choice is then to make
0x91 = alt+0145 as a mirrored apostrophe.
> U+2018 is identified as a *left* single quotation mark.
Unicode has *no* generic left or right quotation marks.
HTML has such generic tags, namely <Q> </Q>, which almost never
work in most browsers.
Unicode's quotation marks are based on shape rather than semantics:
We have the low-9 quotation mark U+201A for use in German.
And the right quotation mark in German is U+2018.
> But what does left mean in the context of an oblique
> monolinear quote, where the only possible distinguishing
> characteristic between left and right quotes is slant direction?
> Do you see the design ambiguity?
No! Even in Futura and in Palatino Linotype, the glyphs of the
66 and 99 quotes are different!
http://store.adobe.com/type/browser/P/P_039.html
http://store.adobe.com/type/browser/P/P_046.html
> This is why \ is considered by type designers to be a
> legitimate and useful glyph form for U+2018.
Again I disagree!
Most type designers don't know about U+2018 and U+201B.
They just think in terms of traditional 8-bit character sets
such as cp1252 and MacRoman. Here you have no choice indeed
because you have only two high quotation marks.
The situation is different in Unicode!
> You are objecting saying that, even for oblique monoline
> quotes, U+2018 and U+201B should never be identical, that the
> former should be / and the latter should be \.
I never said this!
> But surely you see that saying these two characters should
> not be identical means that U+2018 and U+2019 will be identical instead.
I never said this!
I try again:
Make an apostrophe as you like it and put it into U+2019.
Rotate the apostrophe and put it into U+2018.
Mirror the apostrophe and put it into U+201B.
Lower the apostrophe to the base line and put it into U+201A.
I never said anything about the shape of an apostrophe.
Whether any of the above glyphs look (or are) the same,
depends on how *you* make your own apostrophe.
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