Asmus Freytag, Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:22:32 -0700: > Here's my summary of the annotations that we've been discussing so far:
General: I'm OK with the 'preferred' word. I don't think it spreads 'guilt' to say so. E.g. I know that «» and “” are preferred, but I use " e.g. because I once heard an English screen reader user who did not get anything good out of «». > U+00F7 DIVISION SIGN > = obelus > * also used as an alternate, more visually distinct 2212 - MINUS SIGN > or 2011 – EN DASH in some contexts > * historically used as a punctuation mark to denote questionable > passages in manuscripts > x 070B syriac harklean obelus > x 2212 minus sign > x 2052 commercial minus sign > > (the reference to en-dash is based on the Italian usage cited in the > wikipedia article for Obelus) I gave more data here: http://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/y2012-m07/0134.html > The discussion of these symbols in the relevant chapters of the > standard could also be improved. > > On page 200, the subsection "Other Punctuation" should be augmented > by this sub-sub-section > > /Obelus/ Originally a punctuation mark to denote questionable > passages in manuscript, U+00F7 DIVISION SIGN is now most commonly > used as a symbol indicating division. However, even modern use is not > limited to that meaning. The character can be found as indicating a > range (similar to the /en-dash/) or as a form of /minus sign/. The > latter use is still widespread in Scandinavian countries. (see also > "Commercial Minus"). I perhaps feel that "widespread" is a little strong. I would qualify it with a "in some contexts, it is still widespread in Scandinavian countries". -- Leif H Silli
