From: Asmus Freytag (asmusf@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Mon Jan 17 2005 - 18:58:35 CST
At 08:43 AM 8/23/2004, Jörg Knappen wrote:
>But it isn't GESCHUETZTE SORTE in its specific meaning. Neither is
>U+24C8. The difference is the same as the difference between
>U+0052 U+20DD or U+24C7 from U+00AE REGISTERED SIGN. GESCHUETZTE SORTE
>belongs to a class of special characters with a legal meaning (like
>COPYRIGHT SIGN and SOUND RECORDING COPYRIGHT SIGN, two name two others of
>this class).
The circled C, P and R came into Unicode/10646 from specific legacy
character sets, while the circled alphabets came from other such sets.
Originally, I suspect, the reason for their differentiation had much
to do with the desire to not disrupt the circled alphabet, since it is
used in automatic numbering of bullet items.
I don't recall that there ever was a conscientious decision to code these
by function. In terms of glyphic variation there is no strong differentiation
since the use of both serifed and non-serifed letters certainly does occur
in practice for the copyright symbol etc. However, as unlike the case for
numbers, there is no white-on-black set of circled letters, it could be
argued that using a font shift for these is the intended mechanism. That
would mean that the range of glyphs is vastly different from the 'official'
symbols.
There is another significant difference in that the circled alphabet all
have compatibility decompositions to <circled> letters, but the characters
for the official symbols do not, meaning that they are not affected by
NFKD.
I further note that there are no cross references in the character name
charts between the three symbols and the circled alphabet.
Based on these arguments, a formal proposal for a new character for
GESCHUETZTE SORTE would be welcome so that these issues could be formally
evaluated by the committees (as opposed to just being bantered about on
this list).
A./
PS: it would be nice if such a proposal could also address the circled
(or ellipsoid) Wz for WAHRENZEICHEN that can be found in Duden and other
sources. Is this a generally used character in Germany?
PPS: the AMS fonts contain some special symbols that are / were needed
by publishers for specific purposes in the context of *technical* publications
even if their inclusion was not strictly due to mathematical usage.
However, mathematicians being a greedy sort, such distinctions may
not last very long. No mathematician can long resist the lure of a readily
available symbol to mark some new distinction ;-).
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