[XeTeX] A general suggetion formanaging thefontselectionformixed-language document

[John Was]

Dear Javier

Ah - thanks for that.  I'm stuck on the 13th edition, the one that was 
current when I was working full time for a publisher.  I'm glad they've now 
gone for what seems to be a more satisfactory solution, and hope that we 
don't now have e.g. at sect. 17.88 an italic comma after {\it Debates\/} in 
the second example but roman commas in the following two when the 
punctuation serves the same function in the reference (but even in the 13th 
edition I notice the roman comma after a full point in the shortened form of 
the same reference, though under that edition's system it shouldn't be since 
the point is short for italic {\it ates\/} and would therefore take a 
following italic comma).

All these rules - and indeed our idea of what constitutes 'correct' formal 
English - come from the Victorians' zeal to impose order on what was 
previously a much more fluid practice.  In matters of punctuation I think 
that was generally a good thing, though the rules governing the language 
itself sometimes represent an unnatural and unhistorical intervention - e.g. 
'the better of two' (under the influence of Latin's positive, comparative, 
superlative) when good old-fashioned English (e.g. Jane Austen) is 'the best 
of two', and the idea that a preposition is a bad word to end a sentence 
with.  But we're rather stuck with these conventions now, I think.

Best


John


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Javier Bezos" <lists at texytipografia.com>
To: "Unicode-based TeX for Mac OS X and other platforms" <xetex at tug.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2007 4:47 PM
Subject: JunkEmail: Re: [XeTeX] A general suggetion formanaging 
thefontselectionformixed-language document


>
>>> I've always wondered about this, but I usually just put the
>>> following punctuation mark in italics as well, as it seems easier
>>> to me. Is it actually wrong in terms of typography ?
>
>> The _U. of Chicago Manual of Style_ says, twice (5.4 and 6.60), that
>> punctuation should be in the same font as the letter(s) that
>> immediately precede it. The exception is brackets and parentheses. So
>> it should be \emph{Wow!} and not \emph{Wow}!
>
> They have changed their mind and now 'punctuacion marks
> should appear in the same font--roman or italic--as the
> main or surrounding text, except [mainly] for punctuation
> that belongs to a title' (6.3, 15th ed.). Thus, they
> follow the current trend, because the new rule 'serves
> both simplicity an logic'.
>
> Javier
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