John Hudson <tiro at tiro dot com> wrote: > Love the HOT BEVERAGE character, but where's the TALL LOWFAT SOYMILK > MOCHA FRAPPUCCINO? Come on guys, there's enough blank spaces in that > block for the entire Starbucks beverage menu, especially if you treat > things like EXTRA FOAM as a combining character.
As a little background, in the North Korean proposal to add characters from KPS 9566-97 to ISO/IEC 10646 (WG2 N2374, 2001-09-03), HOT BEVERAGE was originally called TEA SYMBOL and was described as being used to show "that there is tea room in resting place on the map." The symbol was accepted, at least up to this point (FPDAM ballot), but the name was generalized (perhaps at the behest of American coffee-drinking interests :-). Which reminds me of some of the other characters in the DPRK proposal: The two North Korean national symbols, HAMMER AND SICKLE AND BRUSH and CIRCLED HAMMER AND SICKLE AND BRUSH, were described as being "used in identifying symbols in map." Since any map of North Korea and vicinity would clearly show the current borders, skeptical people like me are left to wonder what locations could possibly need to be identified with a North Korean symbol. (These symbols apparently were not accepted.) The innocuous-looking WHITE FLAG and BLACK FLAG were described as being "used in Marking battle place and the position where victory is gained." Considering the ongoing status of the Korean conflict and the almost single-minded North Korean focus on its immediate history, skeptical people like me are left to conclude the "victory" is over South Korea. These flag characters were accepted and will probably find widespread use in other contexts, but their politically charged origin is a bit disturbing. Certainly, some of these characters are "controversial" in a manner entirely different from, say, CGJ. -Doug Ewell Fullerton, California
