[OT] Re:The siglum key explained.

[Jacques Hausser]

I looked at "siglum", wondering if it has something to do with gollum or glum. Well, "Siglum" seems to be a generic denomination for special characters (*,#,§,&, at ...).
On Mac's character wiever § is called "Section sign", what seems to be the normal name in english. It is highly used in legal writing to refer to sections of laws and so on.  in french § is usually called "paragraphe" but the nicest name is the one of the ampersand (&) : "esperluette".
Thanks to RunRev (and Richmond) I'm learning new things every day !

Jacques

Le 29 oct. 2010 à 08:26, Richmond Mathewson a écrit :

> On 10/28/10 11:21 PM, DunbarX at aol.com wrote:
>> Richmond.
>> 
>> <snip>
>> 
>> And what is the story with "siglum?
> 
> Well; on Mac keyboards the top-left key has a siglum: § on it, rather
> than a `; that key usually being to the left of the Z key.
> 
> Whether § should be classified seriously as one of the sigla is a bit
> of a moot point; I do know that it is often used to mark secondary
> footnotes in 18th and 19th century books. Why the thing is on a Mac
> keyboard I just don't know.
> 
> Richmond.
> 
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Prof. Jacques Hausser
Department of Ecology and Evolution
Biophore / Sorge
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