At 11:00 -0500 1997-02-07, Alain LaBont/e'/ wrote:
>Now TC37, NISO (ANSI), perhaps the European prenorm (I'm not sure any more)
>and a few Scandinavian standards do sort space as a distinct *letter*...
The European prenorm does this. The Irish prenorm does this too.
>To
>me and to Canadian standard CAN/CSA Z243.4.1 (and to French and English [and
>many others'] dictionaries), that is a mistake... To separate family names
>from firts names, one should use different fields, not spaces...
Doesn't this refer to a database application? One also sorts words when
making dictionaries, etc. One doesn't only sort family names. You and I
perceive your name differently: I think your family name is made of two
words, "La" and "Bonté" (except that you write it as one word, "LaBonté"
(and we all remember why)). I cannot imagine an application in which "van"
and "den" and "Beld" could, as they are all normal Dutch words, be sorted
as anything but three separate words; and if Mr van den Beld needs to have
his name treated as one object, he should bind it together with a NBSP.
You advocate exactly the reverse:
>However in
>Canadian standard CAN/CSA Z243.4.1, for those who really mean it, they can
>use NBSP which is a special space which has a weight coming before A... We
>do not recommend it thgough, but as it is difficult to enter, it is there
>for those who want to make the effort and really mean it!
Option-Spacebar? Alt-Spacebar? How hard is that?
So that is why we have the toggle. :-)
-- Michael Everson, Everson Gunn Teoranta 15 Port Chaeimhghein Íochtarach; Baile Átha Cliath 2; Éire (Ireland) Gutháin: +353 1 478-2597, +353 1 283-9396 http://www.indigo.ie/egt 27 Páirc an Fhéithlinn; Baile an Bhóthair; Co. Átha Cliath; Éire
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