Re: maggelish spelling reform (wasRe: english spelling reform)

Christophe Grandsire writes:
 > En réponse à Tim May <butsuri@...>:
 > >  >
 > > There's no intrinsic reason why the two standards shouldn't agree, is
 > > there?
 >
 > They do in fact, just with another orientation.
 >
Well, of course.  ANY set of rectangular coordinates in a plane can be
converted into any other by an appropriate transformation, can't they?

 >   It's just an unfortunate difference of convention.  When is
 > > this convention of measuring from the top left of a page used, anyway?
 >
 > Everywhere precise typographic positioning is needed. Since pages are more
 > often printed from top to bottom than from bottom to top, it's just logical
 > that the origin has been chosen on top of the paper (and on the left since we
 > write left-to-right).
 >
 > > I've never come across it.
 > >
 >
 > Everywhere I've seen physical coordinates used on paper, they always begin at
 > the top left hand corner. It's not much needed anymore with computers and such,
 > but at the time you had to put lead types on a plank to print, and you usually
 > began with the beginning, the top left hand corner, it's just logic that it
 > should be used as origin of the coordinates.
 >
Ah, that makes sense.  The obvious answer is to change all other uses
of Cartesian coordinates such that the positive vertical direction is
down. ;)