Re: China: Government Starts Phasing Out American Processors, Operating Systems on Government Computers

In comp.misc Kees Nuyt <k.nuyt@nospam.demon.nl> wrote:

On 30 Mar 2024 18:36:47 -0300, Mike Spencer
<mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:
 

I understand the reasoning behind the existence of the
f-ligatures but not st, less so why it would be used in
an electronic doc.

 
Wild guess: if there are also 'nd', 'rd' and 'th' ligatures, it
is probably meant for constructs like
1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, ... etc.
 
Also, some of the ligatures could be used for "kerning".
 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligature_(writing)>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerning>

Possibly, but one can perform kerning without resorting to using
ligatures.  The ligatures appear to be a holdover from when documents
were handwritten (often with a fountain pen) and the ligatures were
just a direct result of how the pen lays down the ink (and the writer
not lifting the pen sufficiently to avoid laying down ink).