Sorting by Case

[Michael Horlick]

     Even if the American Heritage dictionary catalogs words in a
lowercase-then-uppercase manner, the heading at the top of each section
reads 'A a' and 'B b' -- not the other way around.  Uppercase first would
seem the better choice to me -- when applicable, that is -- many languages
don't even have capitals.

     The order throughout the rest of the standard ('rest' meaning
'non-English' languages) seems to have a capital then lowercase mentality --
at least according to the copy of UNICODE 3.0 that I have (unless some big
decision was made at the last conference in Amsterdam at which, alas, I was
not an attendee.)

     As many characters in the standard will have multiple mappings, it
would seem logical that no one great order could be acheived.  I'm not
entirely sure that what English does (in terms of case-sorting) should
influence the course of the entire standard as a whole.

     Beyond that, unless I'm mistaken, the reference for 'a', for example,
is named 'Latin lowercase a' -- not 'English lowercase a'...why does an
English standpoint even matter ?

Michael

=======================================
        michael hunter horlick
           michael at rfa.org
---------------------------------------
   "A shy failure is nobler than an
           immodest success."
                     -Kahlil Gibran
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-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of A. Vine
Sent: Monday, March 13, 2000 3:03 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Sorting - case


All,

There is a debate on the Unicode list about what is normal (expected) sort
order
in English - lowercase then uppercase, or uppercase then lowercase?  For
example, is it August, then august?  Or polish, then Polish?

Cites differ from Oxford press, Websters, and Merriam Webster.  Please leave
the
word chronology and parts of speech out - consider only the word as written.

Thanks for any info,
Andrea
--
Andrea Vine, avine at eng.sun.com, iPlanet i18n architect
Guilty feet have got no rhythm.
-- George Michael