From: Asmus Freytag (asmusf@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Thu May 22 2008 - 11:17:14 CDT
On 5/22/2008 1:44 AM, Philippe Verdy wrote:
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>> -----Message d'origine-----
>> De : unicode-bounce@unicode.org
>> [mailto:unicode-bounce@unicode.org] De la part de Eric Muller
>> Envoyé : jeudi 22 mai 2008 06:58
>> À : verdy_p@wanadoo.fr
>> Cc : 'Jim Allan'; unicode@unicode.org
>> Objet : Re: Exemplifying apostrophes
>>
>> Philippe Verdy wrote:
>>
>>> And another problem:
>>> - Also in articles 4, 18, 21.3, 22, 25.1, 26.1 there's a semi-colon
>>> missing a non-breaking space before it (NNBSP is possibly preferable, but NBSP is widely used in most French sources, SPACE is always incorrect
>>>
As I and others have pointed out, SPACE is only incorrect in the context
of insufficiently sophisticated line breaking and rendering software.
Your categorical statement simply misses the mark when you consider
layout software based on the Unicode Line Breaking algorithm.
As Eric has pointed out, there's in principle no need to supply any
character, as the layout of punctuation can be adjusted on the fly, if
the language of the text is known. Whether one should expect such
functionality as a matter of course, is something that could be open to
discussion, especially as it requires accurate identification of the
language of the document.
However, there's no debate about the recommended default behavior of
semicolon in the context of SPACE in the Unicode Linebreak Algorithm, so
in a Unicode context, one really should be able to expect SPACE
characters to work. ;-)
>> Please stop making authoritative-looking statements when they are not.
>>
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> Spacing before semicolons is *THE* MOST WIDELY used conventiçn in French.
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Nobody is taking issue with the French typographical practice as such.
What's under discussion is merely how it should affect encoding.
> You'll see this recommanded everywhere. This is not invented or specific.
> There's certainly various encoding for this spacing, but I maintain that the
> absence of spacing is considered as an error by almost everyone, and that
> not making this spacing not breaking will create other problems.
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> I maintain that the original UN document (in 1948) had this narrow non
> breaking space (just like it had the right single quotes and no vertical
> quotes, including in English).
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> I don't want to be authoritiative, the authoritative statement comes from
> the original document.
>
I think the comment referred to your statement about how to encode
French punctuation, not about the UN document and its contents. Your
goal of not wanting to sound authoritative might have come across better
had you written something less categorical, for example by prefacing
your remarks with something like "I've always thought that..."
Cheers,
A./
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