second attempt

[Janusz S. Bień via Unicode]

On Wed, Oct 31 2018 at  9:38 GMT, Julian Bradfield via Unicode wrote:
> On 2018-10-31, Janusz S. =?utf-8?Q?Bie=C5=84?= via Unicode <unicode at unicode.org> wrote:
>> On Mon, Oct 29 2018 at 12:20 -0700, Doug Ewell via Unicode wrote:
>
> [ as did I in private mail ]
>
>>> The abbreviation in the postcard, rendered in
>>> plain text, is "Mr".
>>
>> The relevant fragment of the postcard in a loose translation is
>>
>>     Use the following address: <Abbreviation1> <Abbreviation2> <name>...
>>     <Abbreviation1> is the abbreviation of magister.
>>
>> I don't think your rendering
>>
>>    Mr is the abbreviation of magister.
>>
>> has the same meaning.
>
> I do, for the reasons stated by many.

How many?

I'm aware only of you and Doug Ewell.

>
> If the topic were a study of the ways in which people indicate
> abbreviations by typographic or manuscript styling, then it would be
> important to know the exact form of the marks; but that is not plain
> text.

Let me remind what plain text is according to the Unicode glossary:

    Computer-encoded text that consists only of a sequence of code
    points from a given standard, with no other formatting or structural
    information.

If you try to use this definition to decide what is and what is not a
character, you get vicious circle.

As mentioned already by others, there is no other generally accepted
definition of plain text.

Best regards

Janusz

-- 
             ,   
Janusz S. Bien
emeryt (emeritus)
https://sites.google.com/view/jsbien