Re: [Groff] more on ellipsis...

[Ted Harding]

On 28-Jan-02 Bernd Warken wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 28, 2002 at 01:19:41PM +0000, Stewart C. Russell wrote:
>> Just heard from the Style Editor of The Guardian:
>> >
>> > No full stop. We would just finish the sentence with ellipsis, like
>> > this ...
>> 
>> INSERT INTO pigeons (data) VALUES ('cat')
>> 
> There is a problem to implement this.  To correctly handle the end of 
> a sentence, a full stop must be provided.  The ellipsis does not know
> about this.  To satisfy both the 4- and the 3-dotters, we could define
> another char \[ell2] that prints only two dots with the right spacing.
> 
> This prints 3 dots at the end \[ell2].
> This prints 4 dots at the end \[ell].

The end-of-sentence business can be handled by the
".cflags" request, e.g.

  .cflags 1 .?!\[ell]

without introducing an extra character.

However, there is another use for \[ell2], which is
to allow the Russian practice of !.. and ?.. as well
as the usual end-of-sentence ... so there is a point
in having \[ell2] anyway; thereafter, users have all
they options they are likely to need in this business
most provoking of perverse idiosyncracy!...

Best wishes to all,
Ted.

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Date: 28-Jan-02                                       Time: 19:29:06
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