5 ms·

I don't think it's true that 囍 never occurs in running text - it's used in company names which would be used in text. It would be odd not to have an encoding fo

by ximeng 10y ago

I don't think it's true that 囍 never occurs in running text - it's used in company names which would be used in text. It would be odd not to have an encoding for such a common character.

thaumasiotes 10y ago
All right, I spent some time trying to find the requirement. I did not find it, but my tentative conclusion is that it does not apply to chinese characters. FROM MEMORY, a while back there was an article on HN complaining that emoji seemed to magically bypass the requirements other characters needed to meet for inclusion in unicode, and that in fact they were commonly in violation. The taco symbol was called out as an example. I can no longer find this article, but it mentioned the running text requirement, and -- I believe -- specifically indicated that use in names does not count as use in running text. (For an idea of why that might be the case, check out http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LuckyCharmsTitle http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LuckyCharmsTitle .) HOWEVER, I was not even able to find, on the unicode web site, any discussion of a running text requirement at all, for any kind of symbol. Some example proposals do refer to "running text" by name, but they don't indicate why. The example proposal given for adding characters to an existing block ( http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n2934.pdf http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n2934.pdf , suggested as a prototype in http://www.unicode.org/faq/char_proposal.html http://www.unicode.org/faq/char_proposal.html ) does not mention "running text" at all, and doesn't appear to go to much trouble to document it, although some such documentation is given. The rough guidelines for character proposals at http://unicode.org/pending/proposals.html http://unicode.org/pending/proposals.html do not refer to "running text" at all, but they do suggest that, late in the process (specifically, on a proposal summary form, which is different from, and subsequent to, an actual proposal), "references to dictionaries and descriptive texts establishing authoritative information" are required. I conclude that the Unicode standard's preferred criterion for chinese character inclusion is "would an authoritative chinese dictionary include this character", and while the answer to that question for 囍 is not unambiguous -- a lot of dictionaries don't include it -- it's easy to imagine that some do. I would appreciate a pointer to the actual running text requirements, as well as what they are supposed to apply to, if anyone can provide that. > It would be odd not to have an encoding for such a common character. Outside of its use as a wedding decoration, which is plainly nonlinguistic, how common is it?
- barkingcat 10y ago
  That character is extremely common. It's not just a one off wedding celebration thing. Also used in new year celebrations. Basically every single year you'd see tons of these printed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Happiness_(calligraphy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Happiness_(calligraphy) It's a pun actually, double happiness.
  - thaumasiotes 10y ago
    Every year you see tons of 福倒 printed too (福, but upside down). That has yet to receive a code point.
    - msbarnett 10y ago
      You're not wrong, but I don't know if it's a great example. CJK characters are, broadly, an example of the Unicode Consortium trying to be way too reductive about what they'd accept, leading to a lot of bad decisions like Han Unification, which caused a lot of damage and which the Consortium has generally now backed away from and recognized as a bad idea. So, yes, if you look closely at CJK character sets in Unicode, you can find a lot of decision making that appears to contradict decision making elsewhere in the standard. This is in large part because the decisions they made wrt CJK characters turned out to be largely wrong, and they've since changed their approach.
      - thaumasiotes 10y ago
        Unification is a mistake. But 囍 has nothing to do with unification. Do you think that 福倒 should have a code point? Would it be considered one of the chinese characters (very iffy) or one of the holiday symbols? The 天书 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Book_from_the_Sky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Book_from_the_Sky ), by design, consists solely of chinese characters that don't exist. (Theoretically. A couple of them, by oversight, did exist.) They are still recognizably "chinese characters" by virtue of being composed of the same components. Should they have unicode points? 囍 plainly exists, but has no textual use. Is it more similar to 靑 or to ️U+2764 "heavy black heart"?

by ximeng 10y ago

I don't think it's true that 囍 never occurs in running text - it's used in company names which would be used in text. It would be odd not to have an encoding for such a common character.

thaumasiotes 10y ago

All right, I spent some time trying to find the requirement. I did not find it, but my tentative conclusion is that it does not apply to chinese characters. FROM MEMORY, a while back there was an article on HN complaining that emoji seemed to magically bypass the requirements other characters needed to meet for inclusion in unicode, and that in fact they were commonly in violation. The taco symbol was called out as an example. I can no longer find this article, but it mentioned the running text requirement, and -- I believe -- specifically indicated that use in names does not count as use in running text. (For an idea of why that might be the case, check out http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LuckyCharmsTitle http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LuckyCharmsTitle .) HOWEVER, I was not even able to find, on the unicode web site, any discussion of a running text requirement at all, for any kind of symbol. Some example proposals do refer to "running text" by name, but they don't indicate why. The example proposal given for adding characters to an existing block ( http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n2934.pdf http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n2934.pdf , suggested as a prototype in http://www.unicode.org/faq/char_proposal.html http://www.unicode.org/faq/char_proposal.html ) does not mention "running text" at all, and doesn't appear to go to much trouble to document it, although some such documentation is given. The rough guidelines for character proposals at http://unicode.org/pending/proposals.html http://unicode.org/pending/proposals.html do not refer to "running text" at all, but they do suggest that, late in the process (specifically, on a proposal summary form, which is different from, and subsequent to, an actual proposal), "references to dictionaries and descriptive texts establishing authoritative information" are required. I conclude that the Unicode standard's preferred criterion for chinese character inclusion is "would an authoritative chinese dictionary include this character", and while the answer to that question for 囍 is not unambiguous -- a lot of dictionaries don't include it -- it's easy to imagine that some do. I would appreciate a pointer to the actual running text requirements, as well as what they are supposed to apply to, if anyone can provide that. > It would be odd not to have an encoding for such a common character. Outside of its use as a wedding decoration, which is plainly nonlinguistic, how common is it?

barkingcat 10y ago
That character is extremely common. It's not just a one off wedding celebration thing. Also used in new year celebrations. Basically every single year you'd see tons of these printed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Happiness_(calligraphy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Happiness_(calligraphy) It's a pun actually, double happiness.
- thaumasiotes 10y ago
  Every year you see tons of 福倒 printed too (福, but upside down). That has yet to receive a code point.
  - msbarnett 10y ago
    You're not wrong, but I don't know if it's a great example. CJK characters are, broadly, an example of the Unicode Consortium trying to be way too reductive about what they'd accept, leading to a lot of bad decisions like Han Unification, which caused a lot of damage and which the Consortium has generally now backed away from and recognized as a bad idea. So, yes, if you look closely at CJK character sets in Unicode, you can find a lot of decision making that appears to contradict decision making elsewhere in the standard. This is in large part because the decisions they made wrt CJK characters turned out to be largely wrong, and they've since changed their approach.
    - thaumasiotes 10y ago
      Unification is a mistake. But 囍 has nothing to do with unification. Do you think that 福倒 should have a code point? Would it be considered one of the chinese characters (very iffy) or one of the holiday symbols? The 天书 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Book_from_the_Sky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Book_from_the_Sky ), by design, consists solely of chinese characters that don't exist. (Theoretically. A couple of them, by oversight, did exist.) They are still recognizably "chinese characters" by virtue of being composed of the same components. Should they have unicode points? 囍 plainly exists, but has no textual use. Is it more similar to 靑 or to ️U+2764 "heavy black heart"?