Kenneth Whistler wrote: > [...] > This is just the computer-age version of the age-old question as > to why a linguist would want to distinguish anything that functions > differently. > > For years back in the late 70's and early 80's, before I got my > first PC, I typed up index slips with a manual typewriter. That > manual typewriter had various custom keys welded on, so that I could > get schwas, open-o's, lambda's, dead-key commas above, and the like. > [...]
I stop quoting here because I already collected enough instances of <'s> for making my point... It seems to me that a word such as "lambda's" is just an English plural noun (also spelled "lambdas"), so it should be allowed in identifiers, it should count as a unit for word selections, etc. Clearly, U+0027 (APOSTROPHE, general category "Po" = other punctuation) is not fit for this purpose, because it has the wrong category and because it is ambiguously used as a quotation mark. But neither U+2019 (RIGHT SINGLE *QUOTATION* MARK, general category "Pf" = final *punctuation*) seems fit for the purpose. So, why does the Unicode book suggest U+2019 as the preferred character for apostrophe? Wouldn't U+02BC (MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE, general category "Lm" = modifier letter) be a better choice? _ Marco
