RE: The glyph of the CAPITAL SHARP S

From: Philippe Verdy (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Thu May 10 2007 - 00:25:15 CDT

  • Next message: John Hudson: "Re: The glyph of the CAPITAL SHARP S"

    No it's a proven fact; if not convinced, try to guess which Latin text is
    written by hiding the lower part or the upper part of the line.

    The lower part is used as a visual hint for maintaining the baseline
    alignment, the middle part contains no distinct form, but only acts on
    blackness (is it "filled" by an extra stroke or not), and the top part
    carries almost all the information and must contain most distinctions

    > -----Message d'origine-----
    > De : Dean Harding [mailto:dean.harding@dload.com.au]
    > Envoyé : jeudi 10 mai 2007 06:49
    > À : verdy_p@wanadoo.fr; 'Michael Everson'; 'Unicode Discussion'
    > Objet : RE: The glyph of the CAPITAL SHARP S
    >
    > > Latin letters have a feature not to forget: letters should remain
    > readable
    > > and immediately recognizable from their distinctive top half... (this is
    > > true for both lowercase and capital letters), otherwise the baseline
    > must
    > > have a very strong difference (such as remaining blank, as between E and
    > F)
    > > The middle slice (near x-height) should carry no visual information in
    > > capitals (this is reserved for lowercase letters).
    >
    > Wow, I'd never heard of that "feature" before. Are you sure it's on
    > purpose,
    > though? I mean, there are a *lot* of exceptions. E & F you mentioned, but
    > there's also B & P & R, X & Y, O & Q or g & q, i & j, v & y and possibly
    > more. They all look identical in the top-half (it depends on which font
    > you
    > use as well - in Arial, i & j are identical in the top-half, but not so in
    > Verdana for example)
    >
    > Dean.
    >
    >
    >
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