If it's not in Unicode, don't expect it in Windows

re: If it's not in Unicode, don't expect it in Windows

Vorn — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 20:57:13 GMT

Man, what am I gonna do when I need a glyph for the Invisible Jet, then?

Vorn

re: If it's not in Unicode, don't expect it in Windows

Michael S. Kaplan — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 20:59:27 GMT

Hi Vorn!

Yes, a question that countless throngs wonder about.... :-)

invisible jet

Maurits — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 22:20:19 GMT

Here you go
http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/0020/index.htm

interrobang

Maurits — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 23:47:48 GMT

Well, Unicode does already include the interrobang... and there's a proposal to include the gnaborretni:
http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n2935.pdf

Don't we also need:

* An Arabic/Spanish question mark? (backwards ¿)
* An Arabic interrobang? (backwards ? + !)
* An Arabic gnaborretni? (backwards ¿ + ¡)

re: If it's not in Unicode, don't expect it in Windows

Michael S. Kaplan — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 02:16:29 GMT

The proposal was turned down, and there has been no interest expressed in the others....

?! in Arabic

Maurits — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 03:52:24 GMT

Re: jet: All invisible things look alike؟ (note use of ironic point)

Let's talk about horizontal symmetery for a second...

There's evidence that Arabs use exclamation marks, even though there is no ARABIC EXCLAMATION MARK sequence. I suppose they're just using U+0021, since it has horizontal symmetry?

But commas and semicolons do have their Arabic counterparts...

This seems to be pictorial evidence of a ?! sequence in Arabic, unless I'm misreading a character that looks like ؟

http://www.themedialine.org/news/print_news_detail.asp?NewsID=9387

The article talks about the prevalence of ؟ and ! in Arabic journalism... maybe I'll take a trip over there and push the interrobang؟

re: If it's not in Unicode, don't expect it in Windows

Michael S. Kaplan — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 03:56:51 GMT

There is of course no evidence that they need or want *this* character -- which is the real point of it all. There is no actual user community looking for it other than people who are bored and want goofy characters added. :-)

re: If it's not in Unicode, don't expect it in Windows

Michael S. Kaplan — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 03:58:03 GMT

Some would call using U+0020 as the INVISIBLE JET an over-unification. :-)

re: If it's not in Unicode, don't expect it in Windows

Jan Billing — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 04:04:43 GMT

I once spent a little while making a Unicode version of Wingdings that used the Symbols and Dingbats area of Unicode plus Private Use Area for anything that didn't fit. I've no idea why I did it, since of course I can't legally distribute it. Oh well. At least I have it on my computer, so I can feel better about using the symbols in it!

re: If it's not in Unicode, don't expect it in Windows

Gabe — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 11:52:18 GMT

That French Wikipedia article was pretty cool, if for no other reason than to see what the French call their punctuation.

For example, what we call a comma they call a virgule. This is interesting, because in English a virgule is a slash, and it turns out that a comma and a slash have common origins. The French word for slash is "barre oblique", which I assume is basically just French for "angled bar". A second instance of this sort of thing is that their name for a pilcrow (the backwards-P we use for a paragraph mark) is called "pied de mouche", while the word "paragraphe" is used to describe the section mark (vertically stacked double-S).

Another interesting difference is that their bracket ([) is called a crochet. I thought it was odd that they would name a bracket after a method for fashioning afghans until I realized that crochet probably means "hook".

The biggest thing I don't understand is that their braces ({}) are called "accolades".

Only apostrophe, point (period), and prime (a tick mark) properly round-trip between English and French.

re: If it's not in Unicode, don't expect it in Windows

Dean Harding — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 13:43:51 GMT

> Some would call using U+0020 as the INVISIBLE JET an over-unification

That's right. There's a big difference between empty space and something that just *looks* like empty space...

re: If it's not in Unicode, don't expect it in Windows

Michael S. Kaplan — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 17:55:49 GMT

Hi Dean, Well, Wonder Woman would certainly tend to think so if she could not find her plane on the roster with her special font to let her see her it!

re: If it's not in Unicode, don't expect it in Windows

Pinocchio Poppins — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 03:23:25 GMT

So what about scripts of minority languages? The Unicode Consortium has been glacial at adding scripts to Unicode. See http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/sei/

re: If it's not in Unicode, don't expect it in Windows

Michael S. Kaplan — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 03:43:38 GMT

Well, glacial is a relative term. And there is also ISO 10646 here as well.

But if a system is based on Unicode, there is no mechanism to randomly add characters that are not....

I am a huge fan of some aspects of the SEI, and I am almost violently against some other aspects. Not something I would necessarily blog about, but....

Yet another face to irony

Sorting it all Out — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 10:02:14 GMT

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