From: John Hudson (john@tiro.ca)
Date: Sat Sep 29 2007 - 20:08:44 CDT
Doug Ewell wrote:
> If this symbol is encoded, it will probably see much more common use in
> quarter-page advertisements in the Yellow Pages for plumbers and
> attorneys and auto mechanics...
Quite likely, but how a character might end up most commonly used seems irrelevant to the
question of whether there is a need for it to be encoded. Personally, I don't think a need
for a Christian fish symbol encoding can be made from 'quarter-page advertisements in the
Yellow Pages for plumbers and attorneys and auto mechanics'* since one doesn't need to be
able to do anything with the symbol in that context that is text-specific: any number of
vector or bitmap graphics formats are adequate ways to handle it. [I don't consider the
fact that outline format fonts are convenient carriers of vector graphics a good reason
for treating something as text.]
So what I'll be looking for, to make a case for encoding the Christian fish symbol, is its
use in contexts where people may wish to perform text-specific operations relative to the
symbol, e.g. searching a corpus of documents for occurences.
JH
* But then I question whether quite a few of the Miscellaneous Symbol characters really
need to exist.
-- Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com Gulf Islands, BC tiro@tiro.com Do not begin to paddle unless you intend always to paddle. - St Jean de Brébeuf, instructions for missionaries, 1637
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