[TUHS] Re: GNU eqn clarifications and reforms

[TUHS] Re: GNU eqn clarifications and reforms

[Douglas McIlroy]

I am not convinced that using special characters rather than in-line
eqn is a good thing. It means learning a whole new vocabulary.  Quick,
what's the special character for Greek psi?

I have found that, for a sequence of displayed equations as in an
algebraic derivation, a pile often looks more coherent than a sequence
of EQ-EN pairs. The pile can even contain interleaved comments, as in
Hoare-style proofs.

Doug

[TUHS] Re: GNU eqn clarifications and reforms

[G. Branden Robinson]

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At 2023-06-15T22:18:08-0400, Douglas McIlroy wrote:
> I am not convinced that using special characters rather than in-line
> eqn is a good thing. It means learning a whole new vocabulary.  Quick,
> what's the special character for Greek psi?

\[*q] !

But I may suffer from an excessive familiarity with this material.

(Checking myself, I got it right!  Part of my mnemonic is that there are
24 letters to map from our Latin alphabet to Greek, drop 'j' and 'v' as
"Late Latin" variants of 'i' and 'u'[1], and then most of the rest map
intuitively with a handful of exceptions that have to be memorized, psi
being one of them.)

> I have found that, for a sequence of displayed equations as in an
> algebraic derivation, a pile often looks more coherent than a sequence
> of EQ-EN pairs. The pile can even contain interleaved comments, as in
> Hoare-style proofs.

Yes.  I suspect there is a widely held misconception that eqn
distinguishes displayed equations from inline ones.  It doesn't--a macro
package might, but even then, nothing internal to the equation's
typography is different.  I guess this is a hangover from TeX?  You need
one rule: use "smallover" instead of "over" if you're trying to pack a
fraction into running text.

Regards,
Branden

[1] Which isn't _quite_ correct but works for this purpose.

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[TUHS] Re: GNU eqn clarifications and reforms

[G. Branden Robinson]

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At 2023-06-16T14:22:22+1000, Damian McGuckin wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Jun 2023, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> > But I may suffer from an excessive familiarity with this material.
> 
> Yes. Me too. Maybe that is a sad comment on the both of us.

That is the price of trying to leave things better than one found them.

> Why do Greeks have an alternate way of writing sigma!

We English-speakers used to have an alternative way of writing it, if
you regard the Latin alphabet's "S" as cognate (so to speak) with the
Greek sigma (and I think doing so is defensible).  It's even in Unicode
with a low code point, U+017F.

For inſtance, the United States uſed to employ a non-final lowercaſe S
in the founding documents of its preſent government, where you can see
exhibits of the "Congreſs of the United States".

It can take the modern reader a "long S" time to not read that "s" as an
"f".

And if you think that's difficult enough, check out, IIRC, the Arabic
and Devanagari scripts where you can have different initial, medial, and
final forms for letters.

Follow-ups ſhould probably be confined to groff@;  I'll ſtop now leſt we
get ſent to the COFF liſt for groſs tranſgreſſions of topicality.

(Although if anyone wants to tell me whether non-final s was applied to
the trailing ends of non-final morphemes _within_ words, I'm all ears.)

Regards,
Branden

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[TUHS] Re: end-S/long-S (was: Re: GNU eqn clarifications and reforms)

[markus schnalke]

Hoi.

[2023-06-16 07:07] "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com>
> 
> For inſtance, the United States uſed to employ a non-final lowercaſe S
> in the founding documents of its preſent government, where you can see
> exhibits of the "Congreſs of the United States".

In old German, up to WWII, namely in Fraktur (the printed letters)
and Sütterlin (the handwritten letters) both kinds of S are
present.

Today, the long-S has only survived in some old company and
restaurant names, many of them changing by and by to the end-S,
because younger Germans can't read long-S and don't understand it
anymore.  Newer names don't use it the long-S, even if they are
written in Fraktur letters, which would demand for the long-S.

For example the beer brand Warsteiner changed the long-S in 2013 to
the end-S.
https://1000logos.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Warsteiner-Logo-history.png


> (Although if anyone wants to tell me whether non-final s was applied to
> the trailing ends of non-final morphemes _within_ words, I'm all ears.)

I'm no language expert, so I don't really know what morphemes are.
What I do know is that the round-S (i.e. end-S) is applied to the
end of words, parts of compound words (typical for German), and in
some situatuations even to parts of words. -- But only in Fraktur
and Sütterlin, not in modern German (latin alphabet), which does
no longer have a long-S.

Examples:

End of word: Haus (engl: house)
Middle of word: Kiſte (engl: box)

Compound word: Hausmaus (engl: house mouse)
Hauſmaus would be wrong.

In such cases the end-S is in the middle of the word. Such
compounds are typical for German. If you have an english word
like ``downhill'', where two separate words joined into one,
the end-S of the first part would still remain an end-S,
although it moved into the middle of the word. (Sorry, I
cannot find an english example where the first word part ends
with s.)

There's a famous example for the difference the distinguishing
between s and ſ can make:

	Wachſtube, i.e. Wach-Stube (engl: guardhouse)
	Wachstube, i.e. Wachs-Tube (engl: wax tube)

In modern German context is necessary to know which meaning
of Wachstube is the right one, in old German it's clear from the
writing.

Besides compounds German is also infamous for it's prefixes. If
you combine the prefix ``aus'' (engl: out) with other words, the
end-S remains as well:

	ausgezeichnet (engl: excellent -- wordly: out-marked)
	Ausfahrt (engl: exit for vehicles -- wordly: out-drive)

Using the long-S in these situation would be wrong.

That means: Whenever one uses a word, that can stand alone (and is
thus well-known for it's shape), as part of a larger word, the part
stays the same, even within other words, keeping its end-S.


Generally I'd say, but take this only as a rule of thumb, because
I'm not enough expert in this: You use an end-S in all situation
where you would want to avoid a ligature of the s with the next
letter. Long-S can have ligatures with the following letter and
there are common ones in German. (In Wachſtube an st-ligature
would be preferred.) End-S will never have ligatures with the
following letter.


This at least is the situation concerning old German, as
understood by someone with curiousity for the topic but without
real lingual knowledge.


meillo

[TUHS] Re: end-S/long-S (was: Re: GNU eqn clarifications and reforms)

[Wesley Parish]

I ſaw Mommy kiſſing ſanta Klaus, underneath the miſtletoe laſt night ...

re: compound words in English ending is "s" - bossman, bossmonkey, etc. 
Though in the case of "Godzone", a somewhat tongue-in-cheek name for New 
Zealand derived from "God's Own", a tribute to New Zealand's natural 
wonders, the "s" has been replaced by "z" ...

Yes, it's an interesting feature of European alphabet development.

Wesley Parish

On 16/06/23 19:43, markus schnalke wrote:
> Hoi.
>
> [2023-06-16 07:07] "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com>
>> For inſtance, the United States uſed to employ a non-final lowercaſe S
>> in the founding documents of its preſent government, where you can see
>> exhibits of the "Congreſs of the United States".
> In old German, up to WWII, namely in Fraktur (the printed letters)
> and Sütterlin (the handwritten letters) both kinds of S are
> present.
>
> Today, the long-S has only survived in some old company and
> restaurant names, many of them changing by and by to the end-S,
> because younger Germans can't read long-S and don't understand it
> anymore.  Newer names don't use it the long-S, even if they are
> written in Fraktur letters, which would demand for the long-S.
>
> For example the beer brand Warsteiner changed the long-S in 2013 to
> the end-S.
> https://1000logos.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Warsteiner-Logo-history.png
>
>
>> (Although if anyone wants to tell me whether non-final s was applied to
>> the trailing ends of non-final morphemes _within_ words, I'm all ears.)
> I'm no language expert, so I don't really know what morphemes are.
> What I do know is that the round-S (i.e. end-S) is applied to the
> end of words, parts of compound words (typical for German), and in
> some situatuations even to parts of words. -- But only in Fraktur
> and Sütterlin, not in modern German (latin alphabet), which does
> no longer have a long-S.
>
> Examples:
>
> End of word: Haus (engl: house)
> Middle of word: Kiſte (engl: box)
>
> Compound word: Hausmaus (engl: house mouse)
> Hauſmaus would be wrong.
>
> In such cases the end-S is in the middle of the word. Such
> compounds are typical for German. If you have an english word
> like ``downhill'', where two separate words joined into one,
> the end-S of the first part would still remain an end-S,
> although it moved into the middle of the word. (Sorry, I
> cannot find an english example where the first word part ends
> with s.)
>
> There's a famous example for the difference the distinguishing
> between s and ſ can make:
>
> 	Wachſtube, i.e. Wach-Stube (engl: guardhouse)
> 	Wachstube, i.e. Wachs-Tube (engl: wax tube)
>
> In modern German context is necessary to know which meaning
> of Wachstube is the right one, in old German it's clear from the
> writing.
>
> Besides compounds German is also infamous for it's prefixes. If
> you combine the prefix ``aus'' (engl: out) with other words, the
> end-S remains as well:
>
> 	ausgezeichnet (engl: excellent -- wordly: out-marked)
> 	Ausfahrt (engl: exit for vehicles -- wordly: out-drive)
>
> Using the long-S in these situation would be wrong.
>
> That means: Whenever one uses a word, that can stand alone (and is
> thus well-known for it's shape), as part of a larger word, the part
> stays the same, even within other words, keeping its end-S.
>
>
> Generally I'd say, but take this only as a rule of thumb, because
> I'm not enough expert in this: You use an end-S in all situation
> where you would want to avoid a ligature of the s with the next
> letter. Long-S can have ligatures with the following letter and
> there are common ones in German. (In Wachſtube an st-ligature
> would be preferred.) End-S will never have ligatures with the
> following letter.
>
>
> This at least is the situation concerning old German, as
> understood by someone with curiousity for the topic but without
> real lingual knowledge.
>
>
> meillo

[TUHS] Re: end-S/long-S (was: Re: GNU eqn clarifications and reforms)

[Paul Winalski]

On 6/16/23, markus schnalke <meillo@marmaro.de> wrote:
>
> [2023-06-16 07:07] "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com>
>>
>> For inſtance, the United States uſed to employ a non-final lowercaſe S
>> in the founding documents of its preſent government, where you can see
>> exhibits of the "Congreſs of the United States".
>
> In old German, up to WWII, namely in Fraktur (the printed letters)
> and Sütterlin (the handwritten letters) both kinds of S are
> present.
>
> Today, the long-S has only survived in some old company and
> restaurant names, many of them changing by and by to the end-S,
> because younger Germans can't read long-S and don't understand it
> anymore.

German also has a ligature letter called eszet that is a fusion of a
long s (the one that resembles the English letter f) and a short s.
It is used when a 's' sound is immediately preceded by a long vowel or
a diphthong and not followed by a consonant.  When the glyph for eszet
isn't available 'ss' is substituted, as in the word 'strasse'
(street).

-Paul W.

[TUHS] Re: end-S/long-S (was: Re: GNU eqn clarifications and reforms)

[John Cowan]

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On Fri, Jun 16, 2023 at 12:18 PM Paul Winalski <paul.winalski@gmail.com>
wrote:


> German also has a ligature letter called eszet that is a fusion of a
> long s (the one that resembles the English letter f) and a short s.
>

Not a short s, but a z, as the name indicates:  es-zett, S-Z.  This
reflects the use of z in Old and Middle High German to represent a sibilant
sound distinct from s, derived from /t/ by the High German sound shift but
distinct from original /s/.  When the distinction was lost in the 13C, z
came to be used for its modern sound /ts/, but the ligature came to
represent the merged /s/.

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[TUHS] Re: end-S/long-S (was: Re: GNU eqn clarifications and reforms)

[Steve Nickolas]

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On Fri, 16 Jun 2023, John Cowan wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 16, 2023 at 12:18 PM Paul Winalski <paul.winalski@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>> German also has a ligature letter called eszet that is a fusion of a
>> long s (the one that resembles the English letter f) and a short s.
>>
>
> Not a short s, but a z, as the name indicates:  es-zett, S-Z.  This
> reflects the use of z in Old and Middle High German to represent a sibilant
> sound distinct from s, derived from /t/ by the High German sound shift but
> distinct from original /s/.  When the distinction was lost in the 13C, z
> came to be used for its modern sound /ts/, but the ligature came to
> represent the merged /s/.

I've seen ß used in some copies of the Geneva Bible with exactly the 
modern German sense, as a ligature of long s and normal s.

-uso.

[TUHS] Re: end-S/long-S (was: Re: GNU eqn clarifications and reforms)

[Angelo Papenhoff]

On 16/06/23, Steve Nickolas wrote:
> I've seen ß used in some copies of the Geneva Bible with exactly the 
> modern German sense, as a ligature of long s and normal s.

There are two origins of this character. One ſs and one ſʒ.
You can see it here:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Sz_modern.svg
1 and 2 are ſs, 3 and 4 are ſʒ

Now it gets even more off-topic (sorry):

My personal favourite (and the one I've adopted in my handwriting) is
the one used in Berlin street signs, obviously ſʒ:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Strasse-FF-Cst-Berlin.png
Interestingly I've noticed the Bonn street signs look rather similar, maybe
it's a thing capitals do.

aap

[TUHS] Re: GNU eqn clarifications and reforms

[G. Branden Robinson]

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At 2023-06-17T05:19:46+1000, Damian McGuckin wrote:
> Getting back to groff, that final/terminating sigma, is it still
> pronounced as sigma.
> 
> It certainly has no EQN equivalent name and its groff short symbol
> name is
> 
> 	\(ts
> 
> (terminal sigma) which is not like other greek letters.  Just
> wondering whether it needs a sentence to mention its abscence from
> EQN.

There are a few others, but they postdate Ossanna troff.  From
groff_char(7) in 1.23.0.rc4:

    ϵ        \[+e]   u03F5     variant epsilon (lunate)
    ϑ        \[+h]   u03D1     variant theta (cursive form)
    ϖ        \[+p]   u03D6     variant pi (similar to omega)
    φ        \[+f]   u03C6     variant phi (curly shape)
    ς        \[ts]   u03C2     terminal lowercase sigma +

I know of no reason to make these generally available by default in eqn,
though, any more than they already are.  You can type their special
characters in eqn input and assign spacing and style types to them.
(This typing system is a GNU eqn feature, not present in AT&T eqn).

In fact I have a coupled pair of reforms in mind for GNU eqn:
unfastening the definitions of the lowercase Greek special characters
from the typeface used for letters (variables), and then defining the
lowercase Greek letter eqn macro names ("alpha", "beta", ...) to
explicitly use the "letter" style type.

https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?64232
https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?64231

(For example:

define alpha ! type "letter" \(*a !

)

This should result in no change for historical documents (except on
terminals, where it will fix a bug), and give us some flexibility for
users of modern fonts where Greek letters are properly supported in text
fonts (i.e., in four styles).

The Graphic Systems C/A/T had uppercase Greek available _only_ upright
and lowercase Greek _only_ italic.  Modern typesetting systems are not
so limited.

Regards,
Branden

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