Asmus Freytag wrote,
> Alphabetic script users' handwriting does not match
> print in all features. Traditional German handwriting
> used a line like a macron over the letter 'u' to
> distinguish it from 'n'. Rendering this with a
> u-macron in print would be the height of absurdity.
If German text were displayed with a traditional German handwriting
(cursive) font, then every "u" would display with a macron. (Except the
ones with umlauts.) That's because the macron is part and parcel of the
identity of the stylistic variant (cursive) of the letter, not because
the addition of the macron makes a stylistic variation. It would indeed
be silly to encode such macrons in data derived from a traditional
German handwriting specimen. Hopefully most everyone here agrees with that.
We all seem to accept that, for example, d = <i>d</i> = <b>d</b> = <font
face="MyCursiveFont">d</font>.
We all don't seem to agree that d # d̲. Or that "Mr." # "Mr" # "Mʳ" #
"Mʳ͇" # "M:r".
