At 15:00 19/09/2007 -0600, Frank Cox wrote:
On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 02:25:01 +0530
"Diabolic Preacher" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> what is a swung dash?
I'm guessing... I think he means a tilde.
Actually, he doesn't: he means a swung dash!
It's an easy but common mistake to confuse the two, but the tilde is
an accent or diacritic, of course, so it has to be raised - to where
it could appear over the letter it affects. The character you get if
you type the key alone is centred vertically and is too low to be the
required accent. It is also too large horizontally to fit over a
letter. Calling a swung dash a tilde is rather like calling a
negative sign a macron, or perhaps even an underscore: these are all
similar-looking but different in detail and position. A full stop -
OK, "period" to some - isn't the same as a raised point.
I can hear you saying "But you can use this key to produce a tilde
over a letter!". Well, yes, but that doesn't alter the fact that the
character you see if you type it alone is not the accent.
So I shall call it the swung dash, but I'm perfectly happy if anyone
wants to call it a tilde.
Brian Barker
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
