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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 4/18/2023 11:43 AM, Mark E. Shoulson
via Unicode wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:8bcd9aca-9ea5-6966-06cd-1f2df19f968f@shoulson.com">I'm
not entirely sure what the fuss is about. As Ken said, "an
ellipsis is an ellipsis is an ellipsis," and I have to agree with
that. U+2026 HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS is only U+002E U+002E U+002E in
*compatibility* decomposition, as far as I can see, and
compatibility was never meant to cover fine points of typography.
If you need an ellipsis that "looks" more bunched-up or more
stretched-out, those are glyph variants, not even variation
sequences, right? And besides, when actually typeset well, I
think there isn't much difference as to what a well-typeset
ellipsis should look like for a given font (that is, when looking
at a book, on paper, do CMoS fans expect ellipses to be that much
more spaced out that AP fans? Do they really look wrong to each
other?) Maybe they do, as you speak about "submitting
manuscripts."
<br>
</blockquote>
<p>If you drill down, you find that the concept of an "ellipsis" and
the abstract character for "horizontal ellipsis" (as currently
conceived) are not fully congruent. And, as was reported here,
there is established (and recommended) practice of using character
sequences. (Plus there are subtle interactions with surrounding
punctuation which are beyond simple glyph design variation.)<br>
</p>
<p>Taken all this together, the preferred action is to document such
practice, instead of pretending that the "horizontal ellipsis"
covers every possible expression of the concept of an "ellipsis".
It happens to work well if you want something that is a single
character and has a moderately compact representation, but it's
not something that works, or is even preferable in all contexts.</p>
<p>This is one of those instances when Unicode can and should be
descriptive, instead of being prescriptive.</p>
<p>As we speak the text of the standard is being updated to counter
the presumption that it's just a matter of always using
"horizontal ellipsis" and trusting the glyph design in the
selected font.</p>
<p>A./<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:8bcd9aca-9ea5-6966-06cd-1f2df19f968f@shoulson.com">
<br>
But I'm still not getting it. When you say that the AP requires
tightly-packed dots because news copy is space-conscious, that has
to do with how they PRINT things, right? It doesn't matter how
loosely kerned the dots are in a reporter's print-out, because
that's not what takes up space in their columns: it's what they
*print* that needs to be space-conscious.
<br>
<br>
So it sounds like the issue here mainly involves the electronic
submission of manuscripts, when you email plain text in to the AP
or a publisher. There's no such thing as "plain text" once it's
on paper; print is as print looks. So in electronic
correspondence, the AP prefers you write an ellipsis as U+002E
U+002E U+002E, while the CMoS standard says you should use U+002E
U+00A0 U+002E U+00A0 U+002E. Is this right, so far?
<br>
<br>
In that case, *neither one* seems to be asking for U+2026
HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS. This sounds like two standards for "how to
write an ellipsis when all you have is periods and spaces." If
you have an actual ellipsis character, then either standard can
easily accept it whether it looks all crunched up or all spaced
out or like a sparkly unicorn (how it looks is a matter for a font
to determine, not "plain text.") Or either standard can decide
not to accept it at all.
<br>
<br>
To be sure, this makes for some weirdness, when you have a
monospace font, which by definition means that "all characters
must take up the same width." If you consider an ellipsis to be a
single character, then, yes, you'll get a horribly crunched-up
ellipsis no matter whose standard you prefer. But that's what you
get for taking a symbol that's designed to be wide and forcing it
to conform.
<br>
<br>
IOW, I don't see this is something to do with Unicode. At best
it's a glyph variant, if even that.
<br>
<br>
~mark
<br>
<br>
On 4/17/23 15:50, t0dd via Unicode wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Hello all,
<br>
<br>
Narrative writers working in the English language, and in
particular the US (I can't speak for the rest of the
English-language world), are generally required to adhere to the
Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS) when submitting manuscripts and
screenplays for publication. News people generally follow the AP
(Associated Press) style. The rub: they each use a different
ellipsis. The CMoS requires three dots spaced apart. The AP,
because news copy is space-conscious, requires dots tightly
packed.
<br>
<br>
Other style guides follow one or the other, but most follow the
the Chicago style or they are indifferent. For example, in
school many of you were required to follow the MLA style guide.
That also requires a spaced-out "Chicago" ellipsis (I am just
going to call it that from here on out). Conversely, if you
wrote for the Psychology Review, you follow the APA style which
adheres to the "AP" ellipsis.
<br>
<br>
Unicode only supplies one horizontal ellipsis: U+2026. The AP
ellipsis. This ellipsis is constructed via three periods with no
additional spacing: U+002E U+002 EU+002E under the covers.
(Spaces between the codes here have been added for readability.)
<br>
<br>
That construction is not sufficient. Ironically, the most
commonly needed ellipsis is not the one defined by Unicode. The
more common need is for something constructed with three-periods
separated by three non-breaking-spaces. I.e., something like
U+002E U+00A0 U+002E U+00A0 U+002E. Again, treated as a solitary
character and unbreakable. And, of course there are
repercussions if it lives next to a sentence-ending period, or
if it is adjacent to a quotation mark. Etc.
<br>
<br>
What most writers do to get around this issue is
find-and-replace all ellipsis characters with three periods
spaced out. But that doesn't word wrap correctly. Slightly more
savvy writers find-and-replace all ellipsis characters with
three periods separated by a non-breaking space (see above). Or
they change the character spacing style within their
word-processing application for their three-period "word". Or
they just use the AP ellipsis and hope no one cares.
<br>
<br>
It should be noted that grammar and spell checkers see these
user-generated constructions as errors.
<br>
<br>
This is ugly. There really needs to be a Unicode character that
supports the Chicago ellipsis.
<br>
<br>
None of the word processing packages builds any robust
workaround for this. LaTeX has an ellipsis package to work
around this and the associated complexities
(<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://tug.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/ellipsis/ellipsis.pdf">https://tug.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/ellipsis/ellipsis.pdf</a>
is really worth the read), but that's not ideal. LaTeX is not
software designed for the Everyman.
<br>
<br>
I hear rumor that some typefaces come with stylistic
alternatives to address this, but that's not the case with any
typeface that I have ever had to use as required by a publisher
(namely New Times Roman). Plus, that's . . . kludgy.
<br>
<br>
So . . . please. Someone. Advocate for supporting a spaced-out
ellipsis so that all of us who have to adhere to a standard that
is not the AP Style don't have to do bizarre find-and-replacey
things or other workaronds. Newspapers are dead, haven't you
heard? 😉
<br>
<br>
We all have access to an em-dashes and en-dashes and other
dashes. A Chicago-styled ellipsis (for lack of a better
nomenclature) is way way overdue IMHO
<br>
<br>
What think y'all? Note, I just joined the mailing list in order
to voice this. Be kind please. :)
<br>
<br>
Cheers. -t
<br>
<br>
<br>
P.S. NOTE: This topic has been touched upon a bit in the past,
but not quite exactly the same ask. (Reference:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/y2006-m01/0164.html">https://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/y2006-m01/0164.html</a>)
That thread devolved into lovely poetry. Worth the read. ;) I
digress . . .
<br>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
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