<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/12/2020 11:01 AM, Christian
Kleineidam via Unicode wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CA+jfYhm77rFhfQ1o-uPZznVaig4RB0-cB5h_Gkx+_U9eCrddsQ@mail.gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">On Fri, Dec 11, 2020 at 11:38 PM Doug Ewell <<a
href="mailto:doug@ewellic.org" moz-do-not-send="true">doug@ewellic.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Christian Kleineidam
wrote:<br>
<br>
> "Evidence suggesting that ๐ป๐๐๐
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐กโ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ contributed the H2<br>
> ๐๐ด๐๐ haplotype to ๐ป๐๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ "<br>
<br>
"Evidence suggesting that Homo neanderthalensis contributed
the H2 MAPT haplotype to Homo sapiens"<br>
<br>
This title is completely meaningful in plain text. The
convention to style the names of species and haplotypes in
italics is just that, a styling convention.<br>
</blockquote>
<div>ย </div>
<div>
Would you also say there's no semantic difference between
"Evidence suggesting that Homo neanderthalensis contributed
the H2 MAPT haplotype to Homo sapiens" and EVIDENCE
SUGGESTING THAT HOMO NEANDERTHALENSIS CONTRIBUTED THE H2
MAPT HAPLOTYPE TO HOMO SAPIENS"? If so, why does unicode
allow those to be formatted differently?ย </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I think that capitalization generally gets used to
express semantic meaning. Capitalizing the first character
of a sentence is a way to semantically mark the start of the
sentence. Capitalizing Homo is a way to express semantics.
Homo gets capitalized here for the same reasons as it gets
italicized. In both cases it's because the semantics of a
species name dictate it if you follow official
recommendations. <br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p><font face="Candara">There are significant differences in usage
as well as implication.</font></p>
<p><font face="Candara">A style, like "italics" can be applied to
nearly the entire set of Unicode characters, while case is
limited to a comparatively tiny subset. If Unicode wanted to
encode styles like it does for case, it would mean multiplying
the number of characters.</font></p>
<p><font face="Candara">But Mathalphabetics, you say. Well, in
mathematical notation, certain styles are applied to very
limited subsets. In effect, you could argue that in those
contexts, certain stylistic variants work like case in ordinary
orthographies. (Mathematical use of letter shapes is special, as
it is almost exclusivelyย using letter shapes as individual
symbols, not part of words).<br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Candara">Styles, commonly, are applied in runs, not
to isolated code points. For case, the default is the other way
around. In both cases, the exceptions prove the underlying rule.</font></p>
<p><font face="Candara">ALL UPPER CASE, as well as <font size="-2">SMALL
CAPS</font></font> are more like a style than normal casing.
As shown by the way they are supported like styles in feature-rich
word processing apps.<font face="Candara"> (The latter are not
encoded: extending the arguments for encoding italics would
force adding support for small caps as well).<br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Candara">Styles, unlike case when applied to selected
letters, tends to not have orthographic use. Even if it carries
meaning that goes beyond being "decorative". There are
exceptions even here, that prove the rule.<br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Candara">Finally, the guiding design principle for
"plain text" is that it is stateless (again, exceptions like
bidi, are there to prove the rule). Styles, being applied in
runs, are inherently not stateless, so are best expressed in
stateful ways (that is, in one or the other rich-text
protocols).</font></p>
<p><font face="Candara">The use case comes from lack of support of
stateful text protocols (even limited ones) in places such as
social media. There is no inherent reason why Twitter, Facebook
and the like could not support "markdown" or similar protocols.</font></p>
<p><font face="Candara">On balance, all proposals for supporting
some sort of "italics in Unicode" ignore not only the
interrelationship shown in these facts, but also the well
established historical division of "plain text" and "rich text"
-- which Unicode has no business upsetting.</font></p>
<p><font face="Candara">A./<br>
</font></p>
<p><br>
</p>
</body>
</html>