Fwd: Why is the "<" symbol named the "less-than sign"?

Wed Sep 16 09:10:37 CDT 2020

I don’t know what Harriot was thinking, but the most obvious reading (one taught, as nearly as I can recall after so many decades, in American schools) is that in a<b, the lesser quantity, a, is at the small end, and the greater, b, is at the large end. Conversely for >. 

As to its use in SGML and XML, it was a replacement for : in IBM’s original GML, where, for example, a paragraph was delimited thus:

  :p. ... :ep. 

: was changed to <, e (for “end”) was changed to /, and . was changed to >. The characters used, of course, had to be available in ASCII. I dare say early publications on SGML include a rationale. 

-- 
John W. Kennedy
"Compact is becoming contract,
Man only earns and pays."
-- Charles Williams.  "Bors to Elayne:  On the King's Coins"

> On Sep 16, 2020, at 6:47 AM, Roger L Costello via Unicode <unicode at unicode.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Folks,
> 
> Just curious ...
> 
> I realize that mathematicians use the "<" symbol to denote the less-than relation. Who decided that that symbol would denote the less-than relation?
> 
> The "<" symbol looks like a "v" turned sideways. How does a sideways "v" symbol connote less-than?
> 
> The "<" symbol is used in other places where it has nothing to do with less-than. For example, it is used in HTML and XML such as this: <body>
> 
> I suspect there are many places where it is used and has nothing to do with less-than.
> 
> So why is the "<" symbol named the "less-than sign"?
> 
> /Roger
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://corp.unicode.org/pipermail/unicode/attachments/20200916/54fe0677/attachment.htm>