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People who don't speak English? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_symbol https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_symbol

qbrass 10y ago
You don't have to be able to read the word ON to recognize it as a symbol. "Circle next to zigzag-thing" is as good as circle with line sticking out of it.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  There's also precedent. Continental Europe standardized on "STOP" on stop signs back in the 70's, even though no continental language has "stop" in it.
  - merijnv 10y ago
    Excuse me? No continental European language has the word stop in it? You should probably learn more languages before making claims like that. Stop is a word in Dutch (the first recognisable use of the word I could find dates back to 1287). And German has stopf. I couldn't find a date for that, because my German isn't good enough to read their etymology dictionary, but it's source is Old High Germanic, so it's safe to say that stop has been around in continental Europe in Germanic languages since Medieval time at the very least. Edit: A quick further Google search reveals that Norwegian and Danish (and thus most likely Sweden too) have the variation "stoppe" derived from Low German. Seems a bit disingenuous to claim it was adopted despite "not being an existing word" if two languages use the exact rendering on the sign and 4 others use/have words that are so closely related that they have the same spelling, but 1 or 2 additional letters. Further edit: French apparently adopted the word stop from English...in 1792
    - dalke 10y ago
      In Swedish it's "stopp". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_sign#Stop_signs_around_the_world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_sign#Stop_signs_around_th... shows examples of "Stop" used in Germany and Italy in the 1950s. The German Wikipedia, at https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoppschild https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoppschild , gives an example of "stop" used in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia) in 1939, though it says the sign was an imported variant. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stoppen#German https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stoppen#German points out: > As in Dutch stoppen, the sense “to stop” is figurative from water flow being stopped by plugging. Only in this figurative meaning has the form been adopted into standard German proper, under the reinforcing influence of English to stop. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stop https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stop gives a list of continental European languages where 'stop' is part of the language. Nearly all borrow from the English. Not Dutch, however.
    - WalterBright 10y ago
      German stop signs used the word "HALT" before. My German dictionary defines "stopf" as darning yarn, and "stoppen" as stop. Not quite the same spelling. Typing "stop" into French Google translate autocompletes to "stoppé". I wouldn't be in the least surprised if the American spelling crept into many European languages as a result of the sign being ubiquitous for 41 years - it would be surprising if it didn't. I wouldn't underestimate the influence on the language of the American occupation after the war, either, nor the global influence of American business since the war. English words have crept in everywhere.
- ahoka 10y ago
  But that symbol is in fact a "LOWPOWERMODETOGGLE" and that is a slightly more complicated than a circle broken by a line.
  - qbrass 10y ago
    And everyone thought it was an on/off toggle.
WalterBright 10y ago
Why is it easier to infer that 'O' means off than 'OFF' for a person who does not know any English?
- function_seven 10y ago
  Because it's a zero and the | is a one. Arabic numerals are more universal, and the convention of 0 for off and 1 for on was established precisely to avoid picking a language. Then the combined glyph for an on/off button was created, along with the similar broken circle glyph for on/standby. Those have squarish proportions, so the corresponding 0 and 1 glyphs are needed to match those proportions. Hence the four symbols now existing in Unicode (well, 3½)
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    > the convention of 0 for off and 1 for on was established precisely to avoid picking a language I figured that politics was the case. What is less supportable is working backwards from that to concoct a rational reason. People who understand digital electronic conventions are highly unlikely to not recognize "ON" and "OFF". Furthermore, anyone who does not know either would find "ON" just as easy to learn as "|". (That's why I referred to "ON" as a 'glyph'.)
    - function_seven 10y ago
      We could also use "OHM" instead of Ω and "EUR" instead of €, but symbols provide more concise representations of meaning, especially in the case of a combined ON/OFF button. Much easier to fit the universal circle with 1 in it than "ON/OFF". The broken circle with 1 in it is way smaller than "ON/STANDBY". The other two symbols are then necessary to keep the proportions consistent across all four related glyphs.
      - WalterBright 10y ago
        That's the only argument I've seen for it that makes any sense. I'll counter by saying only "ON" is needed, not "ON/OFF", as the off part is implicit. Same goes for STANDBY. This has been standard practice for a long time, I'm not just making things up on the fly. BTW, SBY is a standard abbreviation for STANDBY used by the military, if space is a problem. And SBY is a lot more google-able than an icon.

qbrass 10y ago

You don't have to be able to read the word ON to recognize it as a symbol. "Circle next to zigzag-thing" is as good as circle with line sticking out of it.

WalterBright 10y ago
There's also precedent. Continental Europe standardized on "STOP" on stop signs back in the 70's, even though no continental language has "stop" in it.
- merijnv 10y ago
  Excuse me? No continental European language has the word stop in it? You should probably learn more languages before making claims like that. Stop is a word in Dutch (the first recognisable use of the word I could find dates back to 1287). And German has stopf. I couldn't find a date for that, because my German isn't good enough to read their etymology dictionary, but it's source is Old High Germanic, so it's safe to say that stop has been around in continental Europe in Germanic languages since Medieval time at the very least. Edit: A quick further Google search reveals that Norwegian and Danish (and thus most likely Sweden too) have the variation "stoppe" derived from Low German. Seems a bit disingenuous to claim it was adopted despite "not being an existing word" if two languages use the exact rendering on the sign and 4 others use/have words that are so closely related that they have the same spelling, but 1 or 2 additional letters. Further edit: French apparently adopted the word stop from English...in 1792
  - dalke 10y ago
    In Swedish it's "stopp". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_sign#Stop_signs_around_the_world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_sign#Stop_signs_around_th... shows examples of "Stop" used in Germany and Italy in the 1950s. The German Wikipedia, at https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoppschild https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoppschild , gives an example of "stop" used in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia) in 1939, though it says the sign was an imported variant. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stoppen#German https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stoppen#German points out: > As in Dutch stoppen, the sense “to stop” is figurative from water flow being stopped by plugging. Only in this figurative meaning has the form been adopted into standard German proper, under the reinforcing influence of English to stop. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stop https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stop gives a list of continental European languages where 'stop' is part of the language. Nearly all borrow from the English. Not Dutch, however.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    German stop signs used the word "HALT" before. My German dictionary defines "stopf" as darning yarn, and "stoppen" as stop. Not quite the same spelling. Typing "stop" into French Google translate autocompletes to "stoppé". I wouldn't be in the least surprised if the American spelling crept into many European languages as a result of the sign being ubiquitous for 41 years - it would be surprising if it didn't. I wouldn't underestimate the influence on the language of the American occupation after the war, either, nor the global influence of American business since the war. English words have crept in everywhere.
ahoka 10y ago
But that symbol is in fact a "LOWPOWERMODETOGGLE" and that is a slightly more complicated than a circle broken by a line.
- qbrass 10y ago
  And everyone thought it was an on/off toggle.

WalterBright 10y ago

Why is it easier to infer that 'O' means off than 'OFF' for a person who does not know any English?

function_seven 10y ago
Because it's a zero and the | is a one. Arabic numerals are more universal, and the convention of 0 for off and 1 for on was established precisely to avoid picking a language. Then the combined glyph for an on/off button was created, along with the similar broken circle glyph for on/standby. Those have squarish proportions, so the corresponding 0 and 1 glyphs are needed to match those proportions. Hence the four symbols now existing in Unicode (well, 3½)
- WalterBright 10y ago
  > the convention of 0 for off and 1 for on was established precisely to avoid picking a language I figured that politics was the case. What is less supportable is working backwards from that to concoct a rational reason. People who understand digital electronic conventions are highly unlikely to not recognize "ON" and "OFF". Furthermore, anyone who does not know either would find "ON" just as easy to learn as "|". (That's why I referred to "ON" as a 'glyph'.)
  - function_seven 10y ago
    We could also use "OHM" instead of Ω and "EUR" instead of €, but symbols provide more concise representations of meaning, especially in the case of a combined ON/OFF button. Much easier to fit the universal circle with 1 in it than "ON/OFF". The broken circle with 1 in it is way smaller than "ON/STANDBY". The other two symbols are then necessary to keep the proportions consistent across all four related glyphs.
    - WalterBright 10y ago
      That's the only argument I've seen for it that makes any sense. I'll counter by saying only "ON" is needed, not "ON/OFF", as the off part is implicit. Same goes for STANDBY. This has been standard practice for a long time, I'm not just making things up on the fly. BTW, SBY is a standard abbreviation for STANDBY used by the military, if space is a problem. And SBY is a lot more google-able than an icon.