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> From a0837ba65287a48272acf6b92114cb16fe30ef7a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 > From: Bjarni Ingi Gislason <bjarniig@rhi.hi.is> > Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2021 21:46:23 +0000 > Subject: [PATCH] doc/pic.ms: Use the name rather than the symbol for a unit > > The symbol '"' is a specific English one.
Do you have some support for this assertion?
I checked Diderot/d'Alembert's Encyclopédie and Cajori's landmark work on mathematical notations and could not decide the issue.
It's plausible to me that the use of single and double prime symbols was adapted from the division of the circle into degrees, minutes, and seconds. But this is speculation on my part.
> I do not see it for example in conversion tables.
How suggestive this depends on which ones you checked. The metrication of much European literature can cloud the issue; to see how foot and inch were abbreviated or symbolized in non-English traditions you may have to consult pre-Napoleonic sources (hence why I turned to Encyclopédie).
The French had "pied et pouce", for example, and Spanish consumers of televisions and monitors seem to know what "pulgadas" are despite their country having been fully metric for many decades.
> Names of units are better in text than symbols.
Sometimes.
> .sp 2p > .TH > -box@0.75" wide by 0.5" high > -circle@0.5" diameter > -ellipse@0.75" wide by 0.5" high > -arc@0.5" radius > -line@0.5" long > -arrow@0.5" long > +box@0.75 inches wide by 0.5 inches high > +circle@0.5 inches diameter > +ellipse@0.75 inches wide by 0.5 inches high > +arc@0.5 inches radius > +line@0.5 inches long > +arrow@0.5 inches long
I am sure that you've found at least one problem; the use of the neutral double quote here is bad typography. The special character \[sd] should be used instead, which the output device or one of the fonts thereof can degrade to '"' if necessary.
Changing category: While pic.ms is indeed written in the -ms macro language, the document describes the pic preprocessor, which is more in the pic purview than the ms one. That is, this bug concerns the content of pic.ms, not the way -ms renders it.
From a0837ba65287a48272acf6b92114cb16fe30ef7a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bjarni Ingi Gislason <bjarniig@rhi.hi.is> Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2021 21:46:23 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] doc/pic.ms: Use the name rather than the symbol for a unit
The symbol '"' is a specific English one.
I do not see it for example in conversion tables.
Names of units are better in text than symbols.
Signed-off-by: Bjarni Ingi Gislason <bjarniig@rhi.hi.is> --- doc/pic.ms | 12 ++++++------ 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
diff --git a/doc/pic.ms b/doc/pic.ms index 3fc473c13..b1b3d25fe 100644 --- a/doc/pic.ms +++ b/doc/pic.ms @@ -411,12 +411,12 @@ Object@Default Size _ .sp 2p .TH -box@0.75" wide by 0.5" high -circle@0.5" diameter -ellipse@0.75" wide by 0.5" high -arc@0.5" radius -line@0.5" long -arrow@0.5" long +box@0.75 inches wide by 0.5 inches high +circle@0.5 inches diameter +ellipse@0.75 inches wide by 0.5 inches high +arc@0.5 inches radius +line@0.5 inches long +arrow@0.5 inches long .sp 5p _ .TE -- 2.33.0
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