Re: U+0140

[John Hudson]

Michael Everson wrote:

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.
I never contested that the dots of a colon correspond to the triangles of the linguistic 
long vowel marker. They clearly do. What I contested was that the typographic mid-point 
(U+00B7) corresponded to the top dot of a colon. It clearly does not. It is called a 
mid-point because it sits midway up the x-height. It is used in this position for a 
variety of stylistic purposes, e.g. in place of hyphens in phone numbers in stationery, 
which is why most type designers put it at this height. I can assure you that the vast 
majority of type designers don't even know that Catalan uses a dot, let alone that it 
might use this dot.

The obvious solution to present usage is language system typographic tagging, in which a 
distinction can be made in the size, height and spacing of the dot for Catalan and 
non-Catalan use.

'Careful hairsplitting' always takes place when people care about typography.

John Hudson

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