Blog / Deep Dives
Deep Dives
One character, the long version — where it came from, what it actually means, and the arguments people have had about it.
🐅 Tiger The full-body tiger, not the face. U+1F405 sits in Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs with general category So, dates from Unicode 6.0, carries Emoji_Presentation, and is annotated "third of the…❓ Red Question Mark A question mark drawn as an icon rather than as punctuation. Its formal Unicode name is BLACK QUESTION MARK ORNAMENT — where "black" means filled, not coloured — while CLDR's short name, the one most…⁹ Superscript Nine Superscript Digit Nine The raised nine, and the far side of the split that runs through the superscript digits. Unicode files it as No with numeric value 9 and bidirectional class EN, in Superscripts and Subscripts rather…💌 Love Letter An envelope the standard files as a heart. U+1F48C sits in Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs, dates from Unicode 6.0, has general category So and carries Emoji_Presentation. The interesting part…🎲 Game Die The pictographic die, as against the six that show faces. U+1F3B2 sits in Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs, dates from Unicode 6.0, has general category So and carries Emoji_Presentation. Six…✴ Eight Pointed Black Star A solid eight-pointed burst from the Dingbats block, closer to an asterisk than to a five-pointed star and with no clear top. U+2734 is So in Dingbats, present since Unicode 1.1 (1993), with no chart…∎ End Of Proof The tombstone. General category Sm, Mathematical Operators, Unicode 1.1, math class Normal, with East Asian Width Neutral and line-break class AL rather than Ambiguous and AI. It has no HTML named…∈ Element Of Set membership. General category Sm, Mathematical Operators, Unicode 1.1, East Asian Width Ambiguous, line-break class AI, and math class R — a relation, which is why it takes the wide spacing of a…∂ Partial Differential The rounded d of partial derivatives. General category Sm, Mathematical Operators, Unicode 1.1, East Asian Width Ambiguous, line-break class AI. Unicode's math-class table files it as Normal rather…₦ Naira Sign A capital N ruled through with two horizontal strokes, for the Nigerian naira. Unicode's annotation on the character is one word: Nigeria. It has been in the standard since Unicode 1.1, in the first…⁇ Double Question Mark Two question marks in one cell, encoded for vertical East Asian text. Unicode files it as Po in General Punctuation with the compatibility decomposition 003F 003F, so NFKC and NFKD pull it back into…🔋 Battery A full cell, and half of a pair. U+1F50B sits in Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs, dates from Unicode 6.0, has general category So and carries Emoji_Presentation, so it renders in colour…💼 Briefcase An object that doubles as an occupation. U+1F4BC sits in Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs, dates from Unicode 6.0, has general category So and carries Emoji_Presentation. What makes it unusual…👾 Alien Monster The monster half of a two-character pair. U+1F47E sits in Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs, dates from Unicode 6.0, has general category So, and carries Emoji_Presentation so it renders in…👏 Clapping Hands A two-handed gesture with one tone slot. U+1F44F sits in Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs with general category So, dates from Unicode 6.0, and is Emoji_Modifier_Base with line break class EB…⚫ Black Circle A filled disc whose Unicode name is MEDIUM BLACK CIRCLE — a name about size, from a graded family rather than a merged one. U+26AB is So in Miscellaneous Symbols, added in Unicode 4.1 (2005), and it…☑ Ballot Box With Check A checkbox with a tick in it, encoded alongside the empty box at U+2610 and the crossed box at U+2612 — three characters covering the three states a paper form needs. U+2611 is So in Miscellaneous…₵ Cedi Sign A capital C with a stroke through it, for the Ghana cedi. Unicode's annotation is more talkative than most in this block: it names Ghana, then warns that the glyph may look like U+023B LATIN CAPITAL…' Apostrophe Apostrophe-quote Unicode 1.0 named this character APOSTROPHE-QUOTE, and the chart still records that name as an alias — a hyphen marking a standards body declining to choose between two jobs. The modern annotations…" Quotation Mark The straight double quote: one glyph doing the work of an opening mark and a closing one. Unicode's chart calls it neutral (vertical), used as opening or closing quotation mark, and states outright…‘ Left Single Quotation Mark Single Turned Comma Quotation Mark A turned comma, raised. In English it opens a single quotation — the inner pair in American practice, frequently the outer pair in British house styles — and Unicode's chart notes that it is the…∙ Bullet Operator A mathematical operator drawn like a bullet. General category Sm, in the Mathematical Operators block since Unicode 1.1 — a mathematical operator rather than punctuation or a geometric shape. Unicode…⁃ Hyphen Bullet A dash-shaped list marker that is not a dash. General category Po, in General Punctuation since Unicode 1.1, East Asian Width Narrow, and carrying neither the Dash nor the Hyphen property — which is…○ White Circle The unfilled circle of the Geometric Shapes block, encoded in Unicode 1.1. General category So, and it carries the Other_Math property — the standard marking it as used in mathematics without…