l don’t undersand why we Iive in a worId where capital I and Iowercase l are allowed to Iook near identical. PeopIe are paid to design and seIect fonts and they have aII agreed on this Iudicrous convention.
Why has this happened? And is there anything I can do about it as an individuaI or as part of a coIIective?
I can’t even do thorn-master Sxan’s thing and insert a character code because U+026A, ɪ, is too damn small.
Given the confused nature of your post, best look up Unicode, serif and sans-serif before reading on…
First line is mostly Cherokee script, whose alphabet goes ᎠᎡᎢᎣᎤᎥᎦᎧᎨᎱᎪᎫᎬᎭᎮᎯ… Many letters resemble English serif ones: ᎪᏴᏟᎠᎬᎰᏀᎻᎥᎫᏦᏞᎷᎨᎾᏢᏩᎡᏚᎢᏌᏙᎳᏯᎩᏃ. With some clever synonym selection (
the fuckthe hell) and a replacement for the compromised ones like O or (unfortunately also) I, one can use it as a serif typeface wiith small caps.The only uppercase, explicitly serif I in Unicode are “special fonts” (Latin, sometimes Greek letter sets) accessible via an online converter or Android app. Some are meant for formulas where serif is the norm, therefore there’s
Then, there’s
And ᴘsᴇᴜᴅᴏᴀʟᴘʜᴀʙᴇᴛs ʟɪᴋᴇ sᴍᴀʟʟ ᴄᴀᴘs ʜᴇʀᴇ, made by repurposing other characters. Often incomplete, like my Cherokee attempt at serif. Explained on the QAZ website linked above.
Also, I used
Is, almost guaranteed to be supported by the default font on any reasonably modern platformI’m looking forward to the year 𑃦𑃰𑃟𑃰/𞄡𞅀𞄬𞅀/𞄕𞅀𞄧𞅀, the next one whose number can be approximated in a whimsical way by characters in the Sora Sompeng and Nyiakeng Puachue Hmong scripts, respectively. The number of devices supporting them will have grown by then, too.
For yall’s information, nothing typed with those characters will be searchable in the browser, an app, or via website’s search — unless apps and websites take special measures to account for such tricks, by keeping a copy of the text normalized to the regular English alphabet.
/cc @schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works
Or accessible via screen reader…
The “normalization” of pseudoalphabets is tricky, the normal transliteration of the “alphabet” I made with Cherokee syllabics is “Goyvtliagvhonahmivgutsotlelugenatlvwaeduisadolayagino”. (See also Faux Cyrillic (such as СУЯЇLLЇС, actually pronounced “suyaillis”) and !grssk@lemmy.world (faux Greek, such as GRΣΣΚ, actually pronounced “grssk”) for other misused alphabets.) It is necessary to maintain a database of homoglyphs and other lookalikes for proper filtration of τ℮אϯ Ιίᛕᥱ ᵼℎⅰ⟆.
Also, commercial platforms know it’s a way to bypass filters and tend to outright block comments/emails/etc. that use Unicode in unintended ways.