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[bug #57618] man/groff_char.7.man: page needs an overhaul
From: |
Dave |
Subject: |
[bug #57618] man/groff_char.7.man: page needs an overhaul |
Date: |
Fri, 17 Jan 2020 04:51:10 -0500 (EST) |
User-agent: |
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/45.0 |
Follow-up Comment #2, bug #57618 (project groff):
[comment #1 comment #1:]
> I already got rid of the 4 "sic"s.
Well. Serves me right for not doing a "git pull" before submitting this.
I'm not sure eliminating the "sic"s entirely is the right answer, though:
PostScript _does_ use the wrong term, and the man page should let readers know
that this wrong term is not a typo on the man page.
A more interesting question is whether the PostScript column adds any value at
all. Even roff code targeting -Tps output would very rarely use a PostScript
name for a glyph--perhaps rarely enough that it's inappropriate to have it in
a quick-reference guide for groff characters.
> But the page still has much that ails it, as you note.
I don't recall noting any such thing...but sure, I'll take credit for it!
> There is a theory that the [sic] was not for the guillemot/met spelling,
> but due to the problematic terminology of "left" and "right", because
> these glyphs are supposed to mirror-reflect when used in RTL languages.
This was my brief conjecture (I don't know that it rises to the level of a
theory) in bug #57546's discussion, but Werner, who originally added the
"sic"s, quickly squelched it by clarifying his intended meaning.
> So I guess "forward" (in the direction of text flow) and
> "backward" are about the only terms we can use.
...except, as Werner also points out in that thread, even some languages that
have the same text-flow direction use the guillemets in opposite senses.
"left-pointing" and "right-pointing" seem the only truly semantic-neutral
descriptors.
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