Re: Authority For Western Line Breaking Rules

A few comments:

I have read through both "The Chicago Manual of Style" and
"Oxford Guide to Style". Noticed that both books rarely 
refer to line breaks.

Oxford says in page 140 that "Do not carry over parts of 
abbreviations, dates, or numbers to the next line", "Do not break
numbers at a decimal point, or separate them from their abbreviated
units, as with 15 kg or 300 BC. If unavoidable large numbers 
may be broken (but not hyphenated) at their comma, though not after
a single digit: 493,|000,|000." 

UAX#14 introduces SY (Symbols Allowing Break After): Solidus.
There are many cases that English technical book breaks line 
at solidus (/).  But solidus may be used to make abbreviations
such as A/C, i/o. They shall not be breaked at a solidus.
Solidus is one of the ambiguous letter.

UAX#14 gives class B2 (break opportunity before and after) to
em dash. But in many cases, em dash is used unspaced with adjoining
characters. If you may break at an em dash, it is an example of
break at non space character.

I am still investigating both style books. But it seems to me
there are several conflicts with UAX#14 and these stylebooks.

Clearly, UAX#14 shall be more refined.

Best regards,

Tokushige Kobayashi

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I am trying to find an authority for the rules by which Western 
languages are composed into lines, in particular, the rules for where 
line breaks are allowed.




Tokushige Kobayashi
Antenna House, Inc.
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