From: Frank da Cruz (fdc@columbia.edu)
Date: Thu Jan 16 2003 - 09:06:24 EST
> The convention of using a horizontal line to mark an abbreviation, often
> the omission of m or n, goes back to the middle ages (if not earlier)
> and was often used in early printed books; apparently it has lived on in
> some handwriting, to judge from your post.
>
It was used in English too, see:
http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/st-erkenwald.html
> I think that U+0305, the combining overscore, is the right thing to use
> for marking such abbreviations. I would like to get confirmation of
> this from others on the list just to be sure. The only alternative
> would be the combining macron, U+0304, which in many fonts would look
> too short.
>
See the above-referenced page. For putting a line over a single letter,
the macron looks better (the overline is too wide), but you need the
overline for making a line over a series of letters because the macron
is not guaranteed to join.
- Frank
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