Re: U+0140

[Michael Everson]

At 09:03 -0700 2004-04-17, John Hudson wrote:
Michael Everson wrote:

So for me, MIDDLE DOT is to COLON as MODIFIER 
LETTER HALF TRIANGULAR COLON is to MODIFIER 
LETTER TRIANGULAR COLON.
This would make the mid-dot too high. The top 
dot of the colon usually sits toward the top of 
the x-height; the *mid*-dot should sit lower, 
optically midway up the x-height (which means 
slightly higher than the actual halfway mark). 
The top dot of a colon is typically closer to 
the height of the Greek ano teleia, which aligns 
with the x-height (and which should align with 
the cap height in all-cap settings, and with the 
small-cap height in smallcap settings).
John, I just don't believe you. I don't believe 
that in all the history of Greek and Catalan 
typography this careful hairsplitting has 
*always* taken place; certainly in scientific 
transcription the HALF TRIANGULAR COLON is just 
the top dot in the TRIANGULAR COLON, and in 
Americanist transcription where the dot-colons 
are used instead of triangles I would say the 
same applies.

António said:

Another nail in the coffin of "use U+00B7 : MIDDLE DOT for Catalan":
Perhaps because it is exclusively used between "L"s (a "high" letter
in both cases), Catalan middot is placed exactly as Michael has it:
The top dot of a colon (careful Catalan typewriter users do/did just
this, erasing or masking the bottom dot of a colon).
This evidence would suggest to me that my analysis is correct.

The samples Asmus sent suggest to me that a 
school of typographers made a set of bad 
decisions, even if they were really famous and 
got paid lots of money and their fonts are widely 
shipped!

But that's just my opinion.
--
Michael Everson * * Everson Typography *  * http://www.evertype.com