Posted by Ben C on 06/04/07 07:12

On 2007-06-04, Jukka K. Korpela <jkorpela@cs.tut.fi> wrote:
[...]
> There's no "other facts" in this issue, or in the em issue. You can have any
> point of view you like, but it does not change the facts.
[...]
> This "fair discussion" (about the em unit, and then ASCII) is comparable to
> discussing whether 2+2 equals 4 or 7

Hardly. We're talking about the meaning of two semi-technical terms:
"em" and "extended ASCII". Words mean what people use them to mean and
if documents are found on the web including the Wikipedia that use terms
in a particular way then that is factual evidence about how they're
being used.

Now you say they're used differently in "reliable sources" and "books"
and you are a fairly reliable source yourself. But Bernhard Sturm, who
is a typographer and also a reliable source, has suggested that the "em"
is a unit of width after all. So there are facts on both sides. Enough
to conclude that there is some legitimate variation in the use of these
terms.

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