Re: comma ellipses
Commas may be used instead of dots by users of French keyboards (it's easier to type the comma, when the dot/full stop requires pressing the SHIFT key). I may be wrong, but I've quire frequently seen commas or semicolons instead of dot/full stops under normal orthography. But the web and notably social networks can invent their own "rule": pretending that the dot/full stop at end of sentence is "aggressive" is probably a deviation from the English-only designation of the dot as a "full stop", reinterpreted as "stop talking about this, my sentence is final, I don't want to give more justification" (when for such case the user should have better used the exclamation mark!) Anyway I've never liked the 3-dot ellipsis which just occurs in Unicode for compatiblity with fixed-width fonts on terminals, just to compact 3 cells into one (or in CJK styles to replace the "bubble" dots with their 1/2 cell gap on the right side of each cell, contracting them to three smaller dots in just one CJK cell). But another reason could be that using commas instead of dots allows distinguishing the ellipsis from an abbreviation dot used jut before it. Or making the distinction to explicitly mark the end of sentence by a regular dot/full stop after the ellipsis, when the ellipsis could be used in the middle of a sentence (no clear distinction when what follows the ellipsis is a proper name starting by a capital or not a word: where is the end of sentence?) and for which the alternative using comma ellipsis would explicitly say that the ellipsis does not terminate the sentence as in "I need to spend $2... $4 to return" (one sentences, the meaning is different from "I need to spend $2,,, $4 to return" where that comma ellipsis would be an abbreviation for "between $2 and $4"). Anyway, people of the right to use commas if they prefer it for the semantics they intend to distinguish. This does not mean that we need to encode this sequence as a separate unbreakable character like it was done for the dot ellipsis. Otherwise, we would have to encode "etc." also as a single character, or we would end up adding also many more leader dots (in classic metal types regular dots/fullstops were used, but some type compositors may have liked to use mount a single "..." character to avoid having to keep them glued or keep them regularly spaced with special spacers when justifying lines mechanically: this saved them a little time for compositing rows of metal types). There's no real need for CJK or for monospaced terminals to get a more compact presentation. And for regular text, just using multiple separate commas will still render as intended. And metal types are no longer used. Personnally I don't like the 3-dot ellipsis character because it plays badly even in monospaced fonts. And there's no demonstrated use where a single 3-commas ellipsis character would have to be distinguished semantically and visually from 3 separate commas. If people want to use ",,," for their informal speech on social networks, or in chat sessions, they can do that today without needing any new character and a new keyboard layout or input method. And nobody will really know if this ",,," was mistyped instead of "..." to avoid pressing SHIFT on a French AZERTY keyboard (not extended by a numeric keypad where the dot/full stop may also be typed easily without SHIFT). As well a French typist could have used "" with semicolons when forgetting to press the SHIFT key. If we encode ",,," as a single character, then why not "???" or "!!!", or "", or "**", or and many other variants mixing multiple punctuation signs or symbols (like "$$" as an "angry" mark or the abbreviation for "costly", then also "€€" or "££"...) Then also why not "eee" or "h" for noting hesitations? This would become endless, without any limit: Unicode would ten start encoding millions of whole words of thousands languages as single characters, much more than the whole existing set of CJK ideographs (including its extensions in nearly two planes). Interoperability would worsen. Le lun. 7 oct. 2019 à 01:14, Tex via Unicode a écrit : > Now that comma ellipses (,,,) are a thing (at least on social media) do we > need a character proposal? > > > > Asking for a friend,,, J > > > > tex >
Re: comma ellipses
On 10/6/2019 10:59 PM, David Starner via Unicode wrote: I still see the encoding of the original ellipsis as a mistake, probably for compatibility with some older standard that included it because the system wasn't smart enough to intelligently handle "..." as ellipsis. Agreed, a big part was "fixed width" fonts, but the Asian variety where it may also have been baked into the layout. However, now that the code point exists, it has been integrated into the way fonts and applications handle layout. Word, for example, appears to apply auto-correct (or does in the older version running on the machine I'm typing this on). The point is, whatever the situation was in the late 1980's that lead to the inclusion in Unicode in the first grade isn't (can't be) the last word in defining this character: Unicode isn't merely passively modeling, but via users and implementers there's a feedback. The practice seems to be that if you want a typographically sound ellipsis you may key in three periods, but what is stored is the code point for the ellipsis (and the layout for "random" three periods is not adjusted). In any applications that do not support that level of input support, you get a typographically not perfect representation. That's actually not as bad as it sounds, because periods are so heavily overloaded that you'd want to be a bit careful assuming (without user override) that three of them are a true "ellipsis". If there's no "typographically correct" form for a "comma ellipsis" then there's no difference ever between three of them and a comma ellipsis, and all further discussion is moot. However, assume there's an assertion that three commas need to be spaced differently if they are intended as a typographically correctly rendered comma ellipsis. Asking for software to handle that on the fly (without the kind of override option provided by auto-correct or other input support mapping this to an ellipsis code point) would be wrong. One, because it assumes three commas can never be anything else than a "comma ellipsis", and two, because it would introduce a requirement that's at odds with how implementers (or at least an significant portion) have chosen to treat the 3-dot ellipsis. There's even an argument that the whole thing is on par with input support resolving two hyphens into an en-dash and three into an m-dash, but making that subject to user override (via mapping to dedicated code points) and not simply by asserting special on-the-fly formatting. (I also see little risk that there's a huge set of other mutliple-punctuation sequences out there that could make a legitimate claim to be encoded, so treating ellipsis as a precedent does not promise to eat up code space by the plane-load). A./
Re: comma ellipses
Now you are introducing research - that kills all the fun . . . (oops ,
, , )
A./
On 10/6/2019 10:39 PM, Tex wrote:
Just for additional info on the subject:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/oct/05/linguist-gretchen-mcculloch-interview-because-internet-book
“…I’ve been spending a fair bit of time recently with the comma
ellipsis, which is three commas (,,,) instead of dot-dot-dot. I’ve
been looking at it for over a year and I’m still figuring out what’s
going on there. There seems to be something but possibly several
somethings.
One use is by older people who, in some cases where they would use the
classic ellipsis, use commas instead. It’s not quite clear if that’s a
typo in some cases, but it seems to be more systematic than that.
Maybe they’re preferring the comma because it’s a little bit easier to
see if you’re on the older side, and your vision is not what it once
was. Or maybe they just see the two as equivalent. It then seems to
have jumped the shark into parody form. There’s a Facebook group in
which younger people pretend to be to be baby boomers, and one of the
features people use there is this comma ellipsis. And then in some
circles there also seems to be a use of comma ellipses that is very,
very heavily ironic. But what exactly the nature is of that heavy
irony is still something that I’m working on figuring out….”
*From:*Unicode [mailto:unicode-boun...@unicode.org] *On Behalf Of
*Asmus Freytag via Unicode
*Sent:* Sunday, October 6, 2019 10:21 PM
*To:* unicode@unicode.org
*Subject:* Re: comma ellipses
On 10/6/2019 8:21 PM, Garth Wallace via Unicode wrote:
It’s deliberately incorrect for humorous effect. It gets used, but
making it “official” would almost defeat the purpose.
Well then it should encode a "typographically incorrect" comma ellipsis :)
A./
On Sun, Oct 6, 2019 at 5:02 PM Asmus Freytag via Unicode
mailto:unicode@unicode.org>> wrote:
On 10/6/2019 4:05 PM, Tex via Unicode wrote:
Now that comma ellipses (,,,) are a thing (at least on
social media) do we need a character proposal?
Asking for a friend,,, J
tex
I thought the main reason we ended up with the period (dot)
one is because it was originally needed for CJK-style fixed
grid layout purposes. But It could be wrong.
What's the current status for 3-dot ellipsis. Does it get
used? Do we have autocorrect for it? If so, that would argue
that implementers have settled and any derivative usage
(comma) should be kept compatible.
A./
Re: comma ellipses
I still see the encoding of the original ellipsis as a mistake, probably for compatibility with some older standard that included it because the system wasn't smart enough to intelligently handle "..." as ellipsis. -- Kie ekzistas vivo, ekzistas espero.
RE: comma ellipses
Just for additional info on the subject: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/oct/05/linguist-gretchen-mcculloch-interview-because-internet-book “…I’ve been spending a fair bit of time recently with the comma ellipsis, which is three commas (,,,) instead of dot-dot-dot. I’ve been looking at it for over a year and I’m still figuring out what’s going on there. There seems to be something but possibly several somethings. One use is by older people who, in some cases where they would use the classic ellipsis, use commas instead. It’s not quite clear if that’s a typo in some cases, but it seems to be more systematic than that. Maybe they’re preferring the comma because it’s a little bit easier to see if you’re on the older side, and your vision is not what it once was. Or maybe they just see the two as equivalent. It then seems to have jumped the shark into parody form. There’s a Facebook group in which younger people pretend to be to be baby boomers, and one of the features people use there is this comma ellipsis. And then in some circles there also seems to be a use of comma ellipses that is very, very heavily ironic. But what exactly the nature is of that heavy irony is still something that I’m working on figuring out….” From: Unicode [mailto:unicode-boun...@unicode.org] On Behalf Of Asmus Freytag via Unicode Sent: Sunday, October 6, 2019 10:21 PM To: unicode@unicode.org Subject: Re: comma ellipses On 10/6/2019 8:21 PM, Garth Wallace via Unicode wrote: It’s deliberately incorrect for humorous effect. It gets used, but making it “official” would almost defeat the purpose. Well then it should encode a "typographically incorrect" comma ellipsis :) A./ On Sun, Oct 6, 2019 at 5:02 PM Asmus Freytag via Unicode wrote: On 10/6/2019 4:05 PM, Tex via Unicode wrote: Now that comma ellipses (,,,) are a thing (at least on social media) do we need a character proposal? Asking for a friend,,, J tex I thought the main reason we ended up with the period (dot) one is because it was originally needed for CJK-style fixed grid layout purposes. But It could be wrong. What's the current status for 3-dot ellipsis. Does it get used? Do we have autocorrect for it? If so, that would argue that implementers have settled and any derivative usage (comma) should be kept compatible. A./
Re: comma ellipses
On 10/6/2019 8:21 PM, Garth Wallace via
Unicode wrote:
It’s deliberately incorrect for humorous effect.
It gets used, but making it “official” would almost defeat the
purpose.
Well then it should encode a "typographically incorrect" comma
ellipsis :)
A./
On Sun, Oct 6, 2019 at 5:02
PM Asmus Freytag via Unicode <unicode@unicode.org>
wrote:
On 10/6/2019 4:05 PM, Tex via Unicode wrote:
Now that comma ellipses (,,,) are
a thing (at least on social media) do we need a
character proposal?
Asking for a friend,,, J
tex
I thought the main reason we ended
up with the period (dot) one is because it was
originally needed for CJK-style fixed grid layout
purposes. But It could be wrong.
What's the current status for
3-dot ellipsis. Does it get used? Do we have
autocorrect for it? If so, that would argue that
implementers have settled and any derivative usage
(comma) should be kept compatible.
A./
Re: comma ellipses
It’s deliberately incorrect for humorous effect. It gets used, but making it “official” would almost defeat the purpose. On Sun, Oct 6, 2019 at 5:02 PM Asmus Freytag via Unicode < unicode@unicode.org> wrote: > On 10/6/2019 4:05 PM, Tex via Unicode wrote: > > Now that comma ellipses (,,,) are a thing (at least on social media) do we > need a character proposal? > > > > Asking for a friend,,, J > > > > tex > > I thought the main reason we ended up with the period (dot) one is because > it was originally needed for CJK-style fixed grid layout purposes. But It > could be wrong. > > What's the current status for 3-dot ellipsis. Does it get used? Do we have > autocorrect for it? If so, that would argue that implementers have settled > and any derivative usage (comma) should be kept compatible. > > > A./ >
Re: comma ellipses
On 10/6/2019 4:05 PM, Tex via Unicode wrote: Now that comma ellipses (,,,) are a thing (at least on social media) do we need a character proposal? Asking for a friend,,, J tex I thought the main reason we ended up with the period (dot) one is because it was originally needed for CJK-style fixed grid layout purposes. But It could be wrong. What's the current status for 3-dot ellipsis. Does it get used? Do we have autocorrect for it? If so, that would argue that implementers have settled and any derivative usage (comma) should be kept compatible. A./
comma ellipses
Now that comma ellipses (,,,) are a thing (at least on social media) do we need a character proposal? Asking for a friend,,, J tex
