On 07/15/2011 01:37 PM, Doug Ewell wrote:
> How do I talk about U+2420 SYMBOL FOR SPACE in plain text? Other than
> the way I just did, I mean.
This "infinite recursion" argument doesn't hold up. One can see the
need for a graphical representation (which does not mess with layout) of
characters that are not graphically represented and/or which mess with
layout. If I need to talk about RTO I need to mention it and not use
it; I need something I can see. But if I need to talk about a LATIN
LETTER A, I can simply use the character as-is, because it is graphical
and doesn't mess up layout.
Karl Pentzlin said this already, and correctly: if you're worried about
infinite regress here, then you should worry about it for EVERY
character out there. After all, if we need a special symbol for "SYMBOL
FOR RLO" so we can talk about it, don't we also need a special symbol
for "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A"? And then of course we'll also need a
special symbol for "SYMBOL FOR LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A" and so ad infinitum.
Other arguments for or against there might be; infinite regress is a
non-issue here.
~mark
Received on Fri Jul 15 2011 - 13:30:10 CDT
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