When I argue I see shapes

[venta]

As per usual, I am massively behind with things I'd like to write about. I've been to Spain. I've been to Whitby. I've seen some bands. I've even read some books. But anyway...

A few weeks ago, a post from sushidog included a sentence which began "I need to div out..." and I thought huh? div? Oh well, maybe Sushidog has been talking to some people who are unusually hip, or unusually Canadian, or something. Later on in the post she mentioned that she had divd it out after all, and I thought right. Fine. I have learned a new word.

Then nalsa said it, and then susandennis... OK. That's a thing, then.

Except... it just seemed a bit weird. I got suspicious. I looked at LJ on a real, live PC web-browser instead of the Android app. Lo and behold... Everyone was reporting that they needed to figure things out, or had figured things out. For some reason, the app replaces the word "figure" with the word "div". Is this some kind of CSS transform gone wrong?

I have no idea.

(If you're reading this on the app, it probably makes no sense. I am claiming that "f-i-g-u-r-e" is replaced by "d-i-v" on the app.)

Edit: figure (at pseudomonas' suggestion, testing if fi (fi ligature) makes a difference)

Comments

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I now wonder if it replaces "figure" (beginning with an f-i ligature which most mobile devices will just replace with "f" followed by "i") in the same way as "figure" (spelt normally). If so, this is *clearly* a practical work-around for this issue.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yikes, you may have gone into issues of fontage beyond my ken. Someone is bound to say kerning in a minute, they always do...

Interestingly, it switched "figure" to "div" (even when quoted) in my original post, but has left both your "figure"s alone.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

maybe LJ 𝆖eaʦ commenʦ differently.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yikes

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

maybe [U+1C7 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER LJ] [U+1D196 MUSICAL SYMBOL TR]ea[U+2A6 LATIN SMALL LETTER TS DIGRAPH] commen[U+2A6 LATIN SMALL LETTER TS DIGRAPH] di[U+FB00 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FF]erently.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

For even more fun

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/ucgi/~adamb/reduce.cgi gives

mꜽbe LJ treaʦ ℅㎜enʦ differently

m[U+A73D LATIN SMALL LETTER AY]be [U+1C7 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER LJ] trea[U+2A6 LATIN SMALL LETTER TS DIGRAPH] [U+2105 CARE OF][U+339C SQUARE MM]en[U+2A6 LATIN SMALL LETTER TS DIGRAPH] di[U+FB00 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FF]erently

[venta.livejournal.com]

Answer: figure with a ligature is replaced by figure with an f-i, but displays as the correct word on the app.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

YAY an actual problem solved by unicode ligatures. I knew there had to be one.

[simont]

How weird! This smells vaguely similar to the thing I noticed a few years back where a news article mysteriously used the word htmlirin, in the context of it apparently being a drug. I scratched my head over that for a while until I found out that you could also google up instances on the Internet of exhtmlerated, rhtmlberry, and even Rhtmlutin (though now some of those only turn up me being amused by it), all clearly due to some website-migration process having globally replaced "asp" with "html" and forgotten to restrict it to only the targets of hyperlinks.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

There's a clbuttic example of over-vigorous censorship systems causing similar confusion.

[venta.livejournal.com]

that's ace :)

[simont]

Now I think about it again, actually, exhtmleration really ought to go into the dictionary as the word for what had to be done to those web pages afterwards to fix the mess :-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Now I'm imagining a Dalek task force grumpily muttering "Exhtmlerate" into their text editors :)

[simont]

On modern Linux systems, Daleks probably bellow "gnome-terminal-INATE!"

[susandennis]

It is a very secret code. The fact that you can see it means you are 'in'! Congratulations!

[shermarama]

(Are you losing some of your old letters? Or merely laughing at their conversational skills?)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Blooming 'eck - I was so not expecting anyone to get that that I almost replied asking what on earth you were talking about. One giant kudo to you.

[shermarama]

Cor, no, I don't recognise a lot of your titles but Idlewild were awesome. I'm going to have that one in my head for the rest of the evening.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I heard on the radio this week that Idlewild have reformed and are releasing a new album :) :)

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

The hubby says FIGURE is a HTML5 element...I suspect that means more to you than me :)