A 18:27 98-11-12 -0800, Jonathan Coxhead a �crit :
> Alain LaBont� wrote,
>
> | The masculine and feminine indicators were initially coded in Latin 1
mainly
> | for Portuguese, a brother language of French (of course). That said,
> | anybody can use them, for any usage, in any language!
>
> Surely "no-one" [ :-) ] in the Western world uses 'No' anyway? It's
>mainly there for Russian, where it is used extensively, but where the
>letter 'N' does not exist (a Cyrillic 'N' looks like an 'H') except in
>this combination.
>
> In England, as in France I imagine, people would normally just write
>'No', or N<super>o</super>, or even '#'.
[Alain] :
No can be seen (when there is no other alternative).
N� is more frequent since the last 25 years.
N<super>o</super> is "kosher" in French-speaking typography circles.
# is *absolutely* not understood in France (I say this by ample
experience), while its usage is known in Qu�bec to mean the same thing as
in the rest of North America (Qu�bec is culturally almost exactly half-way
between France and English-speaking North America, in spite of its
language, that nevertheless makes this huge territory slightly more
European than American in culture (but it is indeed deeply North-American
since 4 [almost 5] centuries). Of course all of Canada know the # as
meaning "N�". However even Qu�becers call it "di�se" (the musical sign, I
don't know what is the name of this sign in English) rather than "symbole
num�ro"). Bell Canada (on telephone sets) sometimes calls it ��carr頻
(��Appuyez sur le carr頻) in automated voice interfaces, which many people
find misleading. This has been corrected to ��Appuyez sur le di�se�� in
many voice systems.
Alain LaBont�
San Antonio, Texas
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