Re: Too narrowly defined: DIVISION SIGN & COLON

On 7/10/2012 4:57 AM, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
> 2012-07-10 13:50, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
>
>> Asmus Freytag, Mon, 09 Jul 2012 19:32:47 -0700:
> […]
>>> The proper thing to do would be to add these usages to the list of
>>> examples of known contextually defined usages of punctuation
>>> characters, they are common enough that it's worth pointing them out
>>> in order to overcome a bit of the inherent bias from Anglo-Saxon
>>> usage.
> […]
>> Where do I find the (existing) examples? In the PDF version of the
>> spec?
>
> I’m not sure what Asmus meant, but I have thought that we are
> primarily discussing the annotations in the code charts, such as
> http://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0080.pdf
> Information extracted from those charts is also available, perhaps in
> more useful ways, e.g. in the UniBook Character Browser, the BabelPad
> editor, and the Fileformat.info website (though they are not always
> up-to-date and they are not normative sources of information).

The MIDDLE dot has cross references there to DOT OPERATOR and BULLET and
U+003A COLON points to RATIO

>
>> For instance, would be possible, in the the
>> NamesList, or some other field that look-up tools uses, to get a link
>> from e.g. COLON to DIVISION SIGN, and vice versa?
>
> No, I don’t think that’s possible. But the code charts are what people
> use, or should use, so they are suitable for the purpose, even though
> they don’t use hyperlinks but just verbal references. (Hyperlinks are
> possible in PDF format, too, of course, but setting them up can be a
> major effort.)
>
>> My candidate characters, this round, are:
>>
>> DIVISION SIGN (÷) as minus sign.
>> COLON (:) as division sign.
>> MIDDLE DOT (·) as multiplication symbol.
>
> Well, MIDDLE DOT is relatively often used as multiplication symbol, so
> it might be notified, but according to ISO 80000-2, the correct
> dot-like multiplication symbol is DOT OPERATOR. There’s a possibility
> of creating misunderstandings if MIDDLE DOT is explicitly mentioned as
> a multiplication symbol. Such usage is indirectly referred to, or at
> least alluded to, by the cross-reference (of type “see also”) to 22C5
> DOT OPERATOR in the chart.

DOT OPERATOR and RATIO could use annotations identifying themselves as
the "non-fallback" versions of these symbols.
"Used in preference to U+xxxx as character denoting <operation yyyy>"
would be a possible template.

00F7 DIVISION SIGN could usefully be annotated as: "also used as an
alternate, more visually distinct MINUS SIGN in some contexts" with or
without cross reference to U+2212 MINUS SIGN (and U+2052 COMMERCIAL
MINUS SIGN could usefully get an reference to DIVISION SIGN)

A./
Received on Tue Jul 10 2012 - 14:49:25 CDT