On 07/15/2011 01:37 PM, Doug Ewell wrote:
How do I talk about U+2420 SYMBOL FOR SPACE in plain text? Other than the way I just did, I mean.
This "infinite recursion" argument doesn't hold up. One can see the need for a graphical representation (which does not mess with layout) of characters that are not graphically represented and/or which mess with layout. If I need to talk about RTO I need to mention it and not use it; I need something I can see. But if I need to talk about a LATIN LETTER A, I can simply use the character as-is, because it is graphical and doesn't mess up layout.
Karl Pentzlin said this already, and correctly: if you're worried about infinite regress here, then you should worry about it for EVERY character out there. After all, if we need a special symbol for "SYMBOL FOR RLO" so we can talk about it, don't we also need a special symbol for "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A"? And then of course we'll also need a special symbol for "SYMBOL FOR LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A" and so ad infinitum.
Other arguments for or against there might be; infinite regress is a non-issue here.
~mark
