Superscript and Subscript Characters in General Use

[Marcel Schneider]

What typically happens with the correct use of fraction slash on a collaborative 
website like Wikipedia, is that the superscripts and subscripts are restored, Iʼve 
just found while trying to share the section:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Slash_(punctuation)&diff=prev&oldid=759542943
| 
| (→‎Fractions: Removed browser-specific information, restored hack that works on most browsers)
| 
| […]
| 
| […] (e.g., display of {{not a typo|11⁄12}} as <span style="font-family: Cambria;">11⁄12</span>),<ref>{{citation 
|title=The Unicode Standard, […]

Restored by somebody to:
|
| […] (e.g., display of {{not a typo|11⁄12}} as {{not a typo|¹¹⁄₁₂}}),{{citation |title=The Unicode Standard, […]
| 

Thus, OK for the “hack.” Whether that hack is undisciplined or not, becomes now 
a better question. 

In my opinion, the lack of dicipline is rather found in editors of persistently 
non-conformant software. Though I wouldnʼt bother them, if only Unicode could 
accept that the users who need to work with the software, need to work around it.
“Couldnʼt Unicode follow Microsoft?” And follow their users, please.

Consequently, one ought to remember what a keyboard layout really is: a facility 
to help people input the characters they need and use. Therefore, complete ones 
should support the input of fractions composed with super/sub scripts and U+2044, 
and as of Unicode, the Consortium should allow people to write fractions this way 
around if they cannot afford to write them in the standard way. Mentioning this 
in the relevant section of the Standard would avoid tagging these keyboard layout 
developers as hackers. (Iʼm not a hacker, nor am I a programmer.)

Extrapolating from this to ordinal indicators, one could consider that all the 
reasons opposed so far are based only on the lack of updated fonts and on the 
will of the UTC. This is why I cannot consider them as good reasons without some 
additional arguments.

• Fonts: The *true* FRACTION SLASH U+2044 turns out to be even less common than 
the superscript small letters, and we can hope that when facing the real use, 
font-vendors will agree to update the typefaces. 

• Formatting: This has ended up as inappropriate whenever no fine-tuning (CSS) 
can be performed, so that the superscript small letters are finally less bad, 
and even more appropriate in many circumstances.

• Unicode design principles: They are biased. Cf. the naming policy of the 
superscript small letters, declared as 'MODIFIER LETTER SMALL .', while all 
other instances show more straightforward identifiers and headings:

@ Latin superscript modifier letters
x (superscript latin small letter i - 2071) // (These conform to early standards)
x (superscript latin small letter n - 207F)
02B0 MODIFIER LETTER SMALL H // (Should be: LATIN SUPERSCRIPT SMALL LETTER H)
* aspiration
#  0068
[…]
@ Latin subscript modifier letters
1D62 LATIN SUBSCRIPT SMALL LETTER I
#  0069
[…]
@ Subscripts
[…]
2090 LATIN SUBSCRIPT SMALL LETTER A
#  0061
2091 LATIN SUBSCRIPT SMALL LETTER E
#  0065
[…]

Regards,
Marcel