Dear all:
Leaving aside historical considerations, ease of typesetting, space
limits, and usage frequency, is there any other reason for using or not
using superscript ordinals in English?
I.e., I'm asking for aesthetic, technical, and psychological reasons for
why reading or writing
1^{st}, 2^{nd}, 3^{rd}, 4^{th}, ..., n^{th}, ...
(where ^{xy} means that xy is typeset as a superscript)
should be more or less pleasant, rewarding, or just quick than reading
1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, ..., nth, ...
Thanks in advance,
Jaakov
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Leaving aside historical considerations, ease of typesetting, space
limits, and usage frequency, is there any other reason for using or not
using superscript ordinals in English?
I.e., I'm asking for aesthetic, technical, and psychological reasons for
why reading or writing
1^{st}, 2^{nd}, 3^{rd}, 4^{th}, ..., n^{th}, ...
(where ^{xy} means that xy is typeset as a superscript)
should be more or less pleasant, rewarding, or just quick than reading
1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, ..., nth, ...
14.4.2016, 1:55, Jaakov wrote:That's why I asked here.
Leaving aside historical considerations, ease of typesetting, space
limits, and usage frequency, is there any other reason for using or not
using superscript ordinals in English?
I wonder whether the question is about fonts. It might be off-topic in comp.fonts (and on-topic in some group or forum devoted to discussing
the English language).
I.e., I'm asking for aesthetic, technical, and psychological reasons for
why reading or writing
1^{st}, 2^{nd}, 3^{rd}, 4^{th}, ..., n^{th}, ...
(where ^{xy} means that xy is typeset as a superscript)
should be more or less pleasant, rewarding, or just quick than reading
1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, ..., nth, ...
This does not sound like a question about fonts.
Fonts are relevant in some considerations, though, but mainly in the technical side.
Not all fonts contain glyphs for superscripts (either as
primary glyphs for Unicode characters with SUPERSCRIPT in their name or
as secondary, selectable glyphs for normal digits or letters). In fact,
I think glyphs for superscript letters are relatively rare.
Note that “typeset as a superscript” is a vague expression. It might refer to a superscript glyph designed by the typographer that created
the font, or it might refer to a normal glyph in reduced size and in
elevated position. The latter produces poorer (often much poorer)
results typographically. It is what you get e.g. if you type “1st” in Microsoft word and you have allowed the automatic change that makes “st” a superscript – of a kind – in that context.
In bookbinding, it's just the convention: "quarto" or "4^o", not "4o"; "duodecimo" or "12^o", not "12o"; "octavo" or "8^o", not "8o".Thanks!!!
In mailing addresses (in USA, at least) it's writer's choice: 500 5^th Ave. or 500 5th Ave. or 500 Fifth Ave., all are equally acceptable.
14.4.2016, 1:55, Jaakov wrote:
Leaving aside historical considerations, ease of typesetting, space
limits, and usage frequency, is there any other reason for using or not
using superscript ordinals in English?
I wonder whether the question is about fonts. It might be off-topic in comp.fonts (and on-topic in some group or forum devoted to discussing
the English language).
I.e., I'm asking for aesthetic, technical, and psychological reasons for
why reading or writing
1^{st}, 2^{nd}, 3^{rd}, 4^{th}, ..., n^{th}, ...
(where ^{xy} means that xy is typeset as a superscript)
should be more or less pleasant, rewarding, or just quick than reading
1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, ..., nth, ...
This does not sound like a question about fonts.
Fonts are relevant in some considerations, though, but mainly in the technical side. Not all fonts contain glyphs for superscripts (either as primary glyphs for Unicode characters with SUPERSCRIPT in their name or
as secondary, selectable glyphs for normal digits or letters). In fact,
I think glyphs for superscript letters are relatively rare.
Note that “typeset as a superscript” is a vague expression. It might refer to a superscript glyph designed by the typographer that created
the font, or it might refer to a normal glyph in reduced size and in
elevated position. The latter produces poorer (often much poorer)
results typographically. It is what you get e.g. if you type “1st” in Microsoft word and you have allowed the automatic change that makes “st” a superscript – of a kind – in that context.
On Thu, 14 Apr 2016 15:58:15 +0300, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:– –
14.4.2016, 1:55, Jaakov wrote:
Leaving aside historical considerations, ease of typesetting, space
limits, and usage frequency, is there any other reason for using or not
using superscript ordinals in English?
I rather suspect Jaakov may have been thinking particularly about the superscript ^a and ^o (used in Spanish? or Italian?) serving as feminine
and masculine ordinal-number endings
(the HTML entities "feminine ordinal",
ª or ª and "masculine ordinal", º or º ),
and their
analogue in French, superscript ^ême or the like.
As to the technical means by which to produce them -- via HTML <sup> tags,
as dedicated entities, or by other means entirely, that is another question entirely, regarding which I abstain from offering any opinion.
On 04/13/2016 11:55 PM, Jaakov wrote:
Dear all:
Leaving aside historical considerations, ease of typesetting, space
limits, and usage frequency, is there any other reason for using or not
using superscript ordinals in English?
Yes,
see my article on this in TUGboat at https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb26-3/tb84inn.pdf
and my later comments in _Formatting Information_ at http://latex.silmaril.ie/formattinginformation/specials.html#superscript
Ordinal superscripts have a long and honourable history deriving from
their use in mediaeval Latin. This was carried over into early printing,
and was commonplace until the dominance of the typewriter in the early
20th century, when the inability of most typewriters to produce a
superscript except by manual adjustment led to its dmise in print.
It remains the normal way of indicating ordinality in many non-English Latin-alphabet languages, but there it is usually a single character
(the raised o or a as tlvp has shown, wrt printing and binding). I think English is the only language where two letters are used.
Done with care, a superscript st, nd, or th can look fine; but most of
the time nowadays (in English) it just looks hack, and can sometimes
indicate that the author is a Word user and may have no clue.
Dear all:
Leaving aside historical considerations, ease of typesetting, space
limits, and usage frequency, is there any other reason for using or not
using superscript ordinals in English?
I.e., I'm asking for aesthetic, technical, and psychological reasons for why reading or writing
1^{st}, 2^{nd}, 3^{rd}, 4^{th}, ..., n^{th}, ...
(where ^{xy} means that xy is typeset as a superscript)
should be more or less pleasant, rewarding, or just quick than reading
1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, ..., nth, ...
17.4.2016, 0:37, Peter Flynn wrote:
On 04/13/2016 11:55 PM, Jaakov wrote:
Dear all:
Leaving aside historical considerations, ease of typesetting, space
limits, and usage frequency, is there any other reason for using or not
using superscript ordinals in English?
Yes,
“Yes” is a rather short and even incomplete answer to a question like this.
see my article on this in TUGboat at
https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb26-3/tb84inn.pdf
and my later comments in _Formatting Information_ at
http://latex.silmaril.ie/formattinginformation/specials.html#superscript
These are longer but indirect answers. It seems that your opinion is
that superscript ordinals should not be used since they are “a
historical relic of Victorian and earlier typography”. I don’t quite see what type of argument this is.
But as I wrote earlier, the question as
such looks off-topic. Yet, you continue, in the latter document: “Unless done with skill and finesse by a typographer, they are usually ugly and unnecessary, and are never used in modern professional typesetting.”
This may make the question on-topic, at least in part.
Your notes revolve around the behavior of Microsoft Word that I
mentioned earlier. It is not really a relic of anything. Rather, it
imitates typographic superscripts using reduced font size and elevated position for normal glyphs.
If proper superscript glyphs are used, e.g. via OpenType feature sups,
your arguments don’t seem to apply. It might be difficult to find fonts that have such glyphs and suit your needs in other ways, too, and it can
be difficult to make software use those glyphs. But this is not what was asked (though it would have been on-topic here).
Similar things have happened to other glyphs and rendering features,
too. Should we also refrain from using en dashes (–) and em dashes (—) and use Ascii hyphens (-) instead? ☺
It is common in French to write e.g. 1er and 2ème, with the letters as superscripts. (What is correct French is a different issue, and
apparently a debated one.) The use of an accented letter like “è” makes it even more difficult to find a font with a superscript glyph.
[...] It’s challenging, but a matter of
knowing what to do rather than glyph design.
And it can be a difficult challenge, judging from the observations that
in the vast majority of cases where people use superscript two in an expression like m², they don’t use a superscript glyph but a superscripting command in Word, or something similar. (This produces a
rather poor result, especially in large font sizes: the “2” is too small and too thin.) Yet, you can get a superscript two glyph very easily by
using the superscript two *character*.
They [superscript ordinals] are simply outdated, and while
it's fun to preserve them for historical purposes, they are not regarded
as useful by any designers I know.
I'm not familiar with typefaces providing s/t/n/d/r/h as special glyphs
for superscript use -- it's an interesting idea.
But my argument is
against superscript ordinals in English text, regardless of the glyphs
used to represent them.
Similar things have happened to other glyphs and rendering features,
too. Should we also refrain from using en dashes (–) and em dashes (—) >> and use Ascii hyphens (-) instead? ☺
No, they have remained standard practice all the time.
It is common in French to write e.g. 1er and 2ème, with the letters as
superscripts. (What is correct French is a different issue, and
apparently a debated one.) The use of an accented letter like “è” makes >> it even more difficult to find a font with a superscript glyph.
Very. The codepoints exist in Unicode, but I doubt very many
type-designers would spend time including them.
One possible trick is to use a Demibold, if the typeface provides it.
And it can be a difficult challenge, judging from the observations that
in the vast majority of cases where people use superscript two in an
expression like m², they don’t use a superscript glyph but a
superscripting command in Word, or something similar. (This produces a
rather poor result, especially in large font sizes: the “2” is too small >> and too thin.) Yet, you can get a superscript two glyph very easily by
using the superscript two *character*.
Exactly. Slowly, very slowly, software is now handling UTF-8 characters, where previously people were stuck with a huge number of dead-end
encodings. It will take a long time for the abuses to die out.
On 04/17/2016 02:49 PM, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:Well, "outdated", "old", "dead" are historical reasons, which I excluded specifically in my question.
17.4.2016, 0:37, Peter Flynn wrote:
On 04/13/2016 11:55 PM, Jaakov wrote:
Dear all:
Leaving aside historical considerations, ease of typesetting, space
limits, and usage frequency, is there any other reason for using or not >>>> using superscript ordinals in English?
Yes,
“Yes” is a rather short and even incomplete answer to a question like this.
It was intended more as an introduction than a complete answer...
see my article on this in TUGboat at
https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb26-3/tb84inn.pdf
and my later comments in _Formatting Information_ at
http://latex.silmaril.ie/formattinginformation/specials.html#superscript
These are longer but indirect answers. It seems that your opinion is
that superscript ordinals should not be used since they are “a
historical relic of Victorian and earlier typography”. I don’t quite see >> what type of argument this is.
It's an argument for moving onwards. They are simply outdated, and while
it's fun to preserve them for historical purposes, they are not regarded
as useful by any designers I know.
But as I wrote earlier, the question as
such looks off-topic. Yet, you continue, in the latter document: “Unless >> done with skill and finesse by a typographer, they are usually ugly and
unnecessary, and are never used in modern professional typesetting.”
This may make the question on-topic, at least in part.
If I have misled the readers, I apologise.
Your notes revolve around the behavior of Microsoft Word that I
mentioned earlier. It is not really a relic of anything. Rather, it
imitates typographic superscripts using reduced font size and elevated
position for normal glyphs.
Microsoft's behaviour is indeed not a relic of anything; on the contrary
it is a relative novelty introduced (I think) with Word in Windows 95.
If proper superscript glyphs are used, e.g. via OpenType feature sups,
your arguments don’t seem to apply. It might be difficult to find fonts
that have such glyphs and suit your needs in other ways, too, and it can
be difficult to make software use those glyphs. But this is not what was
asked (though it would have been on-topic here).
I'm not familiar with typefaces providing s/t/n/d/r/h as special glyphs
for superscript use -- it's an interesting idea. But my argument is
against superscript ordinals in English text, regardless of the glyphs
used to represent them.
Similar things have happened to other glyphs and rendering features,
too. Should we also refrain from using en dashes (–) and em dashes (—) >> and use Ascii hyphens (-) instead? ☺
No, they have remained standard practice all the time. The point you
miss about superscript ordinals is that they died out and were then
revived by Word.
It is common in French to write e.g. 1er and 2ème, with the letters as
superscripts. (What is correct French is a different issue, and
apparently a debated one.) The use of an accented letter like “è” makes >> it even more difficult to find a font with a superscript glyph.
Very. The codepoints exist in Unicode, but I doubt very many
type-designers would spend time including them.
One possible trick is to use a Demibold, if the typeface provides it.
This compensates visually for the otherwise "too-slim" look of Regular
or Medium fonts at very small sizes. It's also possible, if tedious, to thicken the stroke values manually.
[...] It’s challenging, but a matter of
knowing what to do rather than glyph design.
I think this is the key to so much design: knowing what is possible.
And it can be a difficult challenge, judging from the observations that
in the vast majority of cases where people use superscript two in an
expression like m², they don’t use a superscript glyph but a
superscripting command in Word, or something similar. (This produces a
rather poor result, especially in large font sizes: the “2” is too small >> and too thin.) Yet, you can get a superscript two glyph very easily by
using the superscript two *character*.
Exactly. Slowly, very slowly, software is now handling UTF-8 characters, where previously people were stuck with a huge number of dead-end
encodings. It will take a long time for the abuses to die out.
///Peter
Exactly. Slowly, very slowly, software is now handling UTF-8 characters,
where previously people were stuck with a huge number of dead-end
encodings. It will take a long time for the abuses to die out.
I agree, but my point was that people are playing with superscript
commands rather than superscript characters. The superscript two “²” character is in the Latin 1 repertoire and thus rather safe even in the pre-UTF-8 world.
It is common in French to write e.g. 1er and 2ème, with the letters as superscripts. (What is correct French is a different issue, and
apparently a debated one.) The use of an accented letter like “è” makes it even more difficult to find a font with a superscript glyph.
On Sun, 17 Apr 2016 16:49:52 +0300, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
It is common in French to write e.g. 1er and 2ème, with the letters as
superscripts. (What is correct French is a different issue, and
apparently a debated one.) The use of an accented letter like “è” makes >> it even more difficult to find a font with a superscript glyph.
For another usage example, coming from US publishers' practice rather than French custom, I'll note the use of what can be described in HTML as 2<sup>e</sup> to stand (in book-flog materials or front matter) for "Second Edition" or "2^nd Ed'n".
That's a very low-density example, but a persistent one if you look in the right places :-) .
Another is the use of a final <sup>n</sup> in place of the final " 'n " in abbreviations such as Ed'n (for Edition), funct'n (for function), etc.
17.4.2016, 22:26, Peter Flynn wrote:
They [superscript ordinals] are simply outdated, and while
it's fun to preserve them for historical purposes, they are not regarded
as useful by any designers I know.
My half-educated guess is that most designers of text formatting do not simply know how to produce superscript letters in a typographically acceptable way, even in situations where it is possible. It is natural
to regard something as not useful if you don’t know how to do it. ☺
I'm not familiar with typefaces providing s/t/n/d/r/h as special glyphs
for superscript use -- it's an interesting idea.
They include the “C fonts” Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas, Constantia, and Corbel as well as Palatino Linotype, as shipped with
Windows 7, and Source Sans Pro, as available from Google Fonts. These
are hardly outdated fonts; rather, it seems that superscript letter
glyphs are making a comeback, at the technical level at least. This does
not imply you should use them; just that you can, in some environments.
But my argument is
against superscript ordinals in English text, regardless of the glyphs
used to represent them.
I still don’t know what that argument is, but I think that part of the discussion belongs to other forums.
Similar things have happened to other glyphs and rendering features,
too. Should we also refrain from using en dashes (–) and em dashes (—) >>> and use Ascii hyphens (-) instead? ☺
No, they have remained standard practice all the time.
They didn’t. Typewriters did not have them, early computer keyboards did not have them, and even in the 1990s it was risky to use them on web
pages. (It’s safe now, provided that you do it right.)
Unicode has a code point for superscript “n” (probably due to its use in math), but not for letters in general. So you cannot write “1st” with superscript letters as plain text; you can just use markup of some kind
to indicate that superscript glyphs be used for them.
The point, from the perspective of font design and usage, is that you
cannot have, say, superscript “s” as character, but you can have it as a glyph, to be selected, using special methods, for rendering a normal “s”.
I agree, but my point was that people are playing with superscript
commands rather than superscript characters. The superscript two “²” character is in the Latin 1 repertoire and thus rather safe even in the pre-UTF-8 world.
Thank you, excellent examples of the same kind of precious affectation
as the 2<sup>nd</sup> practice.
On 04/18/2016 08:19 PM, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:– –
I'm not familiar with typefaces providing s/t/n/d/r/h as special glyphs
for superscript use -- it's an interesting idea.
They include the “C fonts” Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas,
Constantia, and Corbel as well as Palatino Linotype, as shipped with
Windows 7, and Source Sans Pro, as available from Google Fonts. These
are hardly outdated fonts; rather, it seems that superscript letter
glyphs are making a comeback, at the technical level at least. This does
not imply you should use them; just that you can, in some environments.
As a non-Windows users, I had missed these: thanks very much.
Do you happen to know what Unicode code-points they represent?
You may have missed that part of the argument: they
[superscript ordinals] make the text look
like something out of the 1890s. Which is valid in a reconstruction of a historical document, but rarely elsewhere.
I agree, but my point was that people are playing with superscript
commands rather than superscript characters. The superscript two “²”
character is in the Latin 1 repertoire and thus rather safe even in the
pre-UTF-8 world.
I don't think the existence of superscript characters would entirely
solve the problem, though, unless they were universally available (eg
given Unicode code-points *and* available in all fonts).
On Mon, 25 Apr 2016 22:12:35 +0100, Peter Flynn wrote:
Thank you, excellent examples of the same kind of precious affectation
as the 2<sup>nd</sup> practice.
LOL ... precious affectation in your eyes, standard practice in others'.
What do you make of the German and Italian hotel practices of using, e.g.,
Zimmer N<sup><u>r</u></sup> 315
Camera N<sup>o</sup> 315
for "Room number 315" on check-in forms?
How many people have read texts from the 1890s these days?
I must admit that my experience with texts from different decades is
so limited that I cannot tell the time range when superscript
ordinals were dominant or common.
I didn’t mean to suggest adding superscript characters to Unicode. I was just trying to point out that even in the important special case of superscript two (and three), people very often don’t use the available characters and glyphs.
Instead of m², they write m2, possibly so that the digit two is
formatted as a superscript the way Microsoft Word (or a word
processor in general) does it—even though it should be clear that the result is inferior.
... there is a perfectly good Numero symbol № for this. Alas
there doesn't seem to be one for Nr but I may have missed it.
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