> The convention of using a horizontal line to mark an abbreviation, often > the omission of m or n, goes back to the middle ages (if not earlier) > and was often used in early printed books; apparently it has lived on in > some handwriting, to judge from your post. > It was used in English too, see:
http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/st-erkenwald.html > I think that U+0305, the combining overscore, is the right thing to use > for marking such abbreviations. I would like to get confirmation of > this from others on the list just to be sure. The only alternative > would be the combining macron, U+0304, which in many fonts would look > too short. > See the above-referenced page. For putting a line over a single letter, the macron looks better (the overline is too wide), but you need the overline for making a line over a series of letters because the macron is not guaranteed to join. - Frank
