From: Marnen Laibow-Koser (marnen@marnen.org)
Date: Tue May 08 2007 - 11:10:31 CDT
On May 8, 2007, at 8:43 AM, Mark E. Shoulson wrote:
> Marnen Laibow-Koser wrote:
>
>> Oddly enough -- and I know this may be off topic -- I think the SS  
>> symbol should maybe make it into Unicode. Nazi-era German  
>> typewriters tend to have it as a glyph of its own, on a separate  
>> key. So it may be needed for proper encoding of Nazi-era  
>> documents. I wonder.
> I think it's been suggested, and given the importance given the  
> glyphs during the Nazi era I think you are correct. Typewriters and  
> typefaces in Germany had to support the symbol, it *was* a  
> character in existence at the time, and Unicode supports historic  
> characters.
Exactly.
>
> When this has been suggested, the answer usually given is that this  
> is to be considered a pair of (variant) U+16CB RUNIC LETTER SIGEL  
> LONG-BRANCH-SOL S (ᛋ). I think that was the rune suggested.
That may well be correct.  It does square with the glyph's origin,  
and it may make sense to encode it as an optional ligature.
>
> Similarly, years ago, I noted that I thought—and still think— 
> that the Nazi swastika should be encoded, for similar historic  
> reasons. It was not just an important symbol of the times, but I  
> seem to think it found its way into text uses as well (as a  
> dingbat, to be sure, but still used).
[...]
How about MANJI and a variant selector?  That should do the trick,  
and do so more elegantly than a separate code point.
Best,
-- Marnen Laibow-Koser marnen@marnen.org
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