alternative names for letterlike symbols(was..Re: Release of Unicode 4.0)

On Mon, 21 Apr 2003, Kenneth Whistler wrote:

> Jungshik asked:
>
> > > implementation. The text of the book is currently in copy-edit, and will 
> > > be
> > > on shelves in September 2003. Key sections of the book will be posted 
> > > online
> > > as each becomes available.
> >
> > When keysections are available on-line, would they be final or
> > can they be subjected to change? Sometimes it's not machine readable
> > data but the text of the book that needs some feedback.
>
> From the point of view of feedback and review they are final.

  OK. I see, but I wish they were not because we haven't had a chance
to directly review them (other than those in UTRs for which we had
ample time to review and give feedbak)


> The book publication is now in "forthcoming" status. There is
> still editing going on, but it is copy editing being done by the
> publisher, not major technical review and content revision.

   Judging from your reply off-line about Hangul syllable boundaries,
I guess it's possible to move U+093E (Devanagari Vowel Sign AA) from
the various signs sub-block  to the dependent vowel sign sub-block in
the codechart.  In all other codecharts for Indic scripts, Vowel Sign
AA's at the corresponding positions (U+hh3E or U+hhBE) are in the dependent
vowel sub-block and I guess putting U+093E in the various signs sub-block
was not intended.

  In addition, in the annotation (canonical decomposition) for
U+0BCA, U+0BCB, and U+0BCC glyphs for U+0BC6, U+0BC7 and U+0BC6 (the
left part of two part vowel signs) in the chart for Tamil kinda bump
upon(overlap) the last digits to the left (6, 7, and 6) making them hard
to recognize.

   BTW, would it be still possible to change alternative names(NOT names)
for some characters in TUS 4.0?  Maybe not. I should have reported these
earlier at least when 'bad names list' was compiled the other day or
when permille was talked about or even  earlier when I wrote abuot U+2130
(in 2001?)

  'gradient' (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Gradient.html)  is not listed
as an alternative name to U+2207 (NABLA) while the chart lists 'del' and
even Laplace operator (Laplacian/Laplacian operator) that is represented
not by U+2207 but by U+2207 followed by superscript 2. 'Laplace operator
(written with superscript 2)' has to to be 'informative note' rather
than an alternative name.  'gradient' has to take its place.

  U+210B(Script Capital H) is annotated with 'Hamiltonian function'
while U+2112(Script Capital L) is with 'Laplace
symbol'. Although some people refer to what most people simply
call 'Hamiltonian' as  'Hamiltonian function' (I wouldn't
believe this if google had not come up with a number of matches.
(http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/Hamiltonian.html), it may have
been better to give  more common alternative names 'Hamiltonian' or
'Hamiltonian operator'. As for U+2112, Largrange wouldn't have liked  the
fact that 'L' is exclusively attributed to Laplace by Unicode when U+2112
is used for 'Largrangian' as widely as for 'Laplace transform'. Besides
U+2131 (Script Capital F) has an alternative name 'Fourier transform' so
that I think it is more consistent to do the same  withU+2112 with by
giving an alternative name 'Laplace transform' in addition to 'Largrangian'
I'm proposing.

   U+212F may as well have a second alternative 'natural exponent'.

  Finally, a bunch of 'Squared Latin Abbreviations' (U+3380 -
U+33DD, U+3371 - U+3376) may need better alternative names (or
informational notes) than they have have now because their names
(e.g. Square NA for nano ampere) are not so descriptive [1] as names of
characters of a similar nature, U+2120 (Service Mark), U+2120 (Telephone
Sign), and U+2122(Trade Mark Sign).  Of course, this is not necessary
if they were given obscure names and no alternative names/informational
note on purpose to discourage their use because they can be just easily
replaced by sequences of Latin/Greek letters and are included only
for the sake of compatibility with CJK standards.

  Jungshik

[1] U+3380 is named 'SQUARE PA AMPS' whereas other characters
in the series of 'amperes' are just named 'SQUARE NA', 'SQUARE MU A',
'SQUARE MA', and 'SQUARE KA'. U+3380 is 'pA' (pico ampere) and not
for 'PA Amp'.  These square characters may not be at the top
of the list of characters with bad names, but belong to it.