# ideas for improving English orthography

This page lists various ideas editors of this wiki have had regarding
  English orthography and various improvements or changes which might
  be made there·with.

## punctuation

### middle dot (middot)

::: thread

- I use the middle dot as a “phonological hyphen”—to indicate when
    parts of words should be pronounced as if they are distinct
    phonological items.
  In this sense it takes the place of a dieresis (‹ co·operate › not
    not ‹ coöperate ›) and clarifies silent E in compound words
    (‹ code·point ›).
  It can also be added when not strictly phonologically necessary just
    to make very long words easier to scan.

  As an exception, I usually don’t use the middle dot with common,
    known suffixes like _‐ly_{as=i} (as in ‹ lately ›) to reduce
    visual noise.
  [][@:Lady]{.sig}

- As a (somewhat) distinct usage, I use the middle dot to separate
    letters which should be spoken separately (acronyms) as this
    avoids the end‐of‐sentence confusion that one gets with periods.
  [][@:Lady]{.sig}

:::

### quoting

::: thread

- I use single quotes (‹ ‘’ ›) as a general quotation mark and double
    quotes (‹ “” ›) for scare quotes.
  Guillemets (‹ «» ›) are for exact quotations from written sources and
    should be separated from their contents by a narrow nonbreaking
    space.
  “Single” angle quotation marks (‹ ‹› ›) are for quoting exact strings
    or sequences of characters irrespective of their meaning.
  [][@:Lady]{.sig}

  - The closing single quote (‹ ’ ›) is also the apostrophe character;
      for a while I used a straight quote (‹ ' ›) for apostrophe, but
      this isn’t what Unicode recommends and frankly doesn’t look as
      nice.
    I’d be open to alternative proposals for apostrophe—maybe broken
      bar (‹ ¦ ›)?
    [][@:Lady]{.sig}

- A narrow nonbreaking space should be placed between adjacent raised
    quotes, for example when a spoken quotation begins or ends with an
    apostrophe.
  [][@:Lady]{.sig}

:::

### dog’s bollocks

::: thread

- I use a dog’s bollocks (‹ ::wj:— ›) to introduce a list of items.
  There is also a reverse variant (‹ —:wj:: ›) for transitioning from a
    list to a comment there·about.
  In both cases, these replace the ordinary colon by giving it a
    directionality.
  I always separate the colon side from neighbouring words with a
    narrow nonbreaking space, and the emdash side with a full
    (breaking) space.
  [][@:Lady]{.sig}

  - Lines should not be broken between the colon and the dash, but
      software sometimes does anyway.
    This can be prevented by adding a word joiner between the two.
    [][@:Lady]{.sig}

  - On this _Wiki_{as=cite}, I’ve defined `:8--:` and `:--8:` as
      shorthands for the whole “narrow nobreak space, colon, word
      joiner, emdash” combo.
    [][@:Lady]{.sig}

:::

### dagger

::: thread

- I use single (‹ † ›) and double (‹ ‡ ›) dagger as proper name marks,
    in contexts where capitalization is not an option or desirable.
  The rules are as follows:8--:
  If the name consists of only one word, place a single dagger before
    it.
  If the name consists of multiple words, place a dagger before the
    first word and after the last.
  If the name consists of multiple parts, use a nested double dagger to
    denote the most significant part (e·g a family name).
  For example, one might write “Zelda Hyrule” as †zelda ‡hyrule† or
    “Mizutani Shizuku” as †‡mizutani shizuku†.
  [][@:Lady]{.sig}

:::

### sets

(By “sets”, lists of items such as “a, b & c” is meant.)

::: thread

- For sets of items, I wrap them in curly braces (‹ \{} ›) whenever
    things seem ambiguous.
  This obviates the need for a comma before the set operator, which
    looks unpleasant.
  (I do use a final comma in a non·operator context, such as before the
    written word “and”.)
  [][@:Lady]{.sig}

- In addition to the ampersand (‹ & ›) indicating “all of a set”, I
    employ the pipe (‹ ∣ ›) to indicate “some of a set” and the
    solidus (‹ ∕ ›) to indicate “one of a set”.
  (One might imagine the reverse solidus (‹ ⧵ ›) used to represent
    “none of a set”.)
  Note that these are the mathematical operators, not the vertical bar
    (‹ | ›), slash (‹ / ›), and backslash (‹ \ ›) from Ascii (the
    ampersand is the same).
  [][@:Lady]{.sig}

  - Typically I only use these in set of two items, because I don’t
      expect people to know how to read “you may have a, b ∕ c” (but
      “you may have b ∕ c” is clearer).
    [][@:Lady]{.sig}

  - Many fonts are bad at rendering the mathematical solidus, perhaps
      confusing it with the fraction slash.
    [][@:Lady]{.sig}

:::

### per sign

::: thread

- I use the per sign (‹ ⅌ ›) in place of the word _per_{as=i},
    including in attributing thoughts (“cats are good, ⅌ æscling”).
  [][@:Lady]{.sig}

:::

## spelling

### tironian et

::: thread

- I use tironian et (‹ ⹒⁊ ›) to replace the _et_{as=i} in phrases such
    as _et cetera_{as=i} (abbreviated ‹ ⁊·c ›) as well as as a
    generalpurpose “and” sign.
  [][@:Lady]{.sig}

:::