Hand characters (was: +1/-1 in e-mail comments (was: Emoji: emoticons vs. literacy))

From: Hans Aberg (haberg@math.su.se)
Date: Thu Jan 08 2009 - 13:22:12 CST

  • Next message: Kenneth Whistler: "Re: Hand characters (was: +1/-1 in e-mail comments (was: Emoji: emoticons vs. literacy))"

    On 8 Jan 2009, at 00:00, Rick McGowan wrote:

    > Receiving an e-mail that says merely "+1" -- i.e., exactly one bit
    > of information -- followed by the /complete /note that was just sent
    > by someone else is annoying. It's like, 1000/1 noise to signal.

    There are
       ☝ U+216D WHITE UP POINTING INDEX
       ☟ U+216F WHITE DOWN POINTING INDEX
    on my computer. represented as hand with an index finger pointing up/
    down.

    So there seems some hand character variations missing:
       WHITE UP POINTING THUMB
       WHITE DOWN POINTING THUMB
       WHITE UP POINTING MIDDLE
       WHITE DOWN POINTING MIDDLE
       ...
    The first two could be used as replacements for +/-1 - though one does
    not really know what the Romans used; the third to terminate
    conversations, at least in some countries. And so on.

    Counting that right/left hands can be used, as well showing front/
    back, and four directions, two colors white/black, there are
    2^5*2*2*4*2 = 1024 hand characters.

       ᚺᚨᚾᛊ

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