Whoever invented English number words, then, had a very sick sense of humour. Why 
doesn't the word for "one" start with "a", the word for "two" with "b", etc.,?


<ruby><rb>じゅういっちゃん</rb><rp>(</rp><rt>Juuitchan</rt><rp>)</rp></ruby>
Well, I guess what you say is true,
I could never be the right kind of girl for you,
I could never be your woman
                      - White Town


--- Original Message ---
差出人: Edward Cherlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
宛先: [EMAIL PROTECTED];
Cc: 
日時: 01/09/13 7:40
件名: Collation (was RE: [OT] o-circumflex)

>English and several other languages have dozens of collations. Compare telephone 
>books, library catalogs, book indexes (sic), and other sorted data. Knuth vol. 3 
>Sorting and Searching gives an example of a set of library sorting rules that runs to 
>more than a page, and suggests programming it as an exercise. ;-) Among the rules are 
>to spell out numbers. 
>For example,
>
>1984 (Nineteen Eighty Four)
>1066 and all that (Ten Sixty Six)
>3001 (Three Thousand One)
>2050 (Twenty Fifty)
>2010 (Twenty Ten)
>2001, A Space Odyssey (Two Thousand One)
>
>Bell Labs invented a whole programming language, Snobol, to deal with telephone 
>listing conversions, matches, and sorts. Many phone books sort Mc- and Mac- together, 
>others one after the other but separate from other names.
>
>Edward Cherlin
>Generalist
>"A knot! Oh, do let me help to undo it." 
>Alice in Wonderland
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> Behalf Of Michael (michka) Kaplan
>> Sent: Mon, September 10, 2001 8:36 AM
>> From: "Mark Davis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> 
>> > Michael, that isn't the point. There is a problem even 
>> when you stick to
>> one
>> > language.
>
>
>> By that time, many langauges may have TWO collations, since 
>> users have been
>> expecting something else for the last few decades?
>> 
>> MichKa
>> 
>> Michael Kaplan
>> Trigeminal Software, Inc.
>> http://www.trigeminal.com/
>> 
>> 
>> 
>
>
>

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