Re: Uppercase ß is coming? (U+1E9E)

From: Douglas Davidson (ddavidso@apple.com)
Date: Fri May 04 2007 - 16:23:31 CST

  • Next message: Marnen Laibow-Koser: "Re: Uppercase ß is coming? (U+1E9E)"

    On May 4, 2007, at 2:56 PM, Michael Everson wrote:

    > At 13:36 -0700 2007-05-04, John Hudson wrote:
    >
    >> But the reader would read e as an error in place of é. He would
    >> not read SS as an error in place of the uppercase eszett, because
    >> orthographically the SS is correct and the latter is a glyph
    >> variant of it.
    >
    > Dieter Weiss and Peter Weiß may each consider that there is only
    > one way to correctly spell their respective names. Despite
    > normative German orthography, Peter may not prefer to be uppercased
    > as PETER WEISS; he may in fact consider it an error. We cannot do
    > anything about normative German orthography, because it is not in
    > our remit. But we should not deny Peter the character he needs to
    > write his name.

    Aren't there individuals in Japan with similar strong opinions as to
    how to write their names, regarding as error what Unicode regards as
    mere glyph variation? Adding new characters for the special purpose
    of names risks interfering with the ordinary functions of searching,
    sorting, casing, etc. for ordinary text. If he insists on the new
    character, Peter risks becoming known as PETER WEI? with no glyph to
    anyone who does not have the proper font; on the other hand, official
    records are likely to regard him as PETER WEISS whether he likes it
    or not. Considering the all-around experience, might it not be
    better to regard uppercase ß as a glyph variant of SS rather than a
    new character?

    Douglas Davidson



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