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'caron'

From:Tristan Mc Leay <kesuari@...>
Date:Thursday, July 8, 2004, 13:52
And Rosta wrote:
> Ray: > >>the 'caron' (hacek, haczek) used in the writing of Czech >>& some other Slav langs - like an _inverted_ circumflex. > > > Where does this word 'caron' come from? I first encountered > it in the character set section of the manual of my first > computer (Amstrad PCW, I worked all the summer of 1987 to > buy it), but it's not in my copies of OED or Webster's > Unabridged, and I've never seen it in texts on typography > or writing systems (where hacek, which is in the dictionaries, > is used).
This has been discussed on this list before. Try <http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0310e&L=conlang&F=&S=&P=1316> by the ever-knowledgeable John Cowan (29 Oct 2003): : Andreas Johansson scripsit: : : > > Nevertheless, the standards community has adopted "diaeresis" as the general : > > name, so we are stuck with it. They also call the hacek "caron", and no one : > > knows why. : : > What's the etymology of "caron", BTW? : : That's just what I meant by "no one knows why"; the etymology is unknown, : and the term seems to exist only in ISO character standards. So we're all at a loss. What fun! I suppose it'll find its way into dictionaries soon enough. It's definitely in _Tristan's Dictionary Kept in His Brain for His and only His Consultation_, the definitive dictionary of my idiolect. (Copies cannot be made, sorry.) -- Tristan. | To be nobody-but-yourself in a world kesuari at yahoo!.com.au | which is doing its best to, night and day, | to make you everybody else--- | means to fight the hardest battle | which any human being can fight; | and never stop fighting. | --- E. E. Cummings, "A Miscellany"

Replies

Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...>
John Cowan <jcowan@...>