Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2024 August 21

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August 21

Distinguishing lowercase omicron from o

Is there any standard way to distinguish lowercase omicron from lowercase o in writing?

In some of my scratch-paper notes I recall solving this by writing Latin o normally, and writing Greek omicron like 𝓞. I have no idea where I got this from (or if I made it up), or if there is any actual standard I ought to adopt instead.

(Prompted by looking up Table of stars with Bayer designations, and noticing that a few constellations have both.) Double sharp (talk) 04:28, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

In specialist printed material (such as astronomy texts and charts), the designers usually take care to choose latin and greek typefaces that are are reasonably distinguishable. In handwritten material, or a more general publication such as Wikipedia, it can obviously be more difficult, often depending on context. I too would be interested to learn of any standard method. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.209.45 (talk) 18:06, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Now I remember that old phishing technique where people registered webpages with occasional Latin letters switched out to Cyrillic (mostly) or Greek letters that basically looked identical. New browsers implement functions that should render the technique void. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:15, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

The only system I have seen is to spell out the first three letters of each Greek letter (and often the first three letters of the constellation as well): for example, "omi Leo" for Omicron Leonis. The SIMBAD database does something like this: [1]. --Amble (talk) 21:26, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

It seems that precisely this o/omicron confusion has happened before, noting Omicron Velorum and Omicron Puppis. (Lacaille assigned letters across all of Argo Navis, so one of these is probably really o and not omicron, but it's not clear which.) Double sharp (talk) 09:22, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

It's worse than that (Jim)! Lacaille (revising Beyer) applied a lower-case Greek sequence across the whole of Argo Navis, then both lower- and upper-case Latin sequences separately in each of Vela, Puppis and Carina. Thus other letters than ο[micron]/o/O are of course also subject to possible confusions. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.209.45 (talk) 14:28, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

I had not realised! Thanks for explaining the mess. :) Double sharp (talk) 14:36, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Being a Northern hemisphere astronomer, I hadn't either until you prompted me to delve into this, so thank you. One reason I answer on the Ref desks is because I learn so much while doing it. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.209.45 (talk) 18:11, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: Summoning you for your knowledge. :D Double sharp (talk) 10:28, 24 August 2024 (UTC)