From jcowan@reutershealth.com Tue Jun 27 10:49:02 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 1113 invoked from network); 27 Jun 2000 15:53:28 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by m1.onelist.org with QMQP; 27 Jun 2000 15:53:28 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mail.reutershealth.com) (204.243.9.36) by mta1 with SMTP; 27 Jun 2000 15:53:27 -0000 Received: from reutershealth.com (IDENT:cowan@skunk.reutershealth.com [204.243.9.153]) by mail.reutershealth.com (Pro-8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA21310 for ; Tue, 27 Jun 2000 11:53:23 -0400 (EDT) Sender: cowan@mail.reutershealth.com Message-ID: <3958CDCF.CB32DCE9@reutershealth.com> Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 11:52:47 -0400 Organization: Reuters Health Information X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.2.5-15 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "lojban@onelist.com" Subject: Re: [lojban] RE:character names References: <48.7566d50.268a1125@aol.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: John Cowan pycyn@aol.com wrote: > It is important to note that these names are not for the characters per se > but for them in some particular function. Many characters have standardized names that describe only one of their functions. # is called NUMBER SIGN by ISO and Unicode, but also serves as a pound (weight) sign in the U.S. It also has the form-based names "hash" and "octothorpe". The "-" character is officially known as HYPHEN-MINUS, reflecting two of its commonest functions. > [I]t can lead to minor confusions when the > same character is used in different functions: slash for division and > subaddressing, say, But it is still the same character. Furthermore, its standard name is SOLIDUS, from when its primary purpose was to separate shillings from pence. > It might also > be sueful to have use-independent names for the characters, for discussion of > their various uses. The Unicode/ISO 10646 index numbers serve that purpose, and we have the cmavo "se'e" to mark a character code. -- Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis um dies! || John Cowan Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau, || http://www.reutershealth.com Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau, || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan Und trank die Milch vom Paradies. -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)