Re: E et _

[Jacques Andre <Jacques.Andre AT irisa.fr>]

Olivier Noyelle wrote:
> 
> Chers tous,
> 
> Quelqu'un connait-il l'origine, le nom, la signification, l'utilisation qui
> est faite des signes suivants :
> 1/ Une sorte de « e » énorme sur les bouteilles de parfum et autres et qui
> veut dire « contenance approximative » si je ne m'abuse.

Chuck Bigelow (que j'aime beaucoup, et je le dis sans casque) a écrit un
article sur la typo des parfums. Voici ce qu'il me dit à ce sujet :

> But I do not recall the "E" symbol when I did the research
> 9-10 years ago.
> 
> I will look at some bottles of French perfume to see if
> I can find the "E". (When I did the research on perfume
> typography, of course I had to buy many bottles of perfume,
> which I gave to Kris. She still has many of them, so it will
> be easy for me to research.)
> 
> There is a standard symbol "e", which looks like a large,
> sans-serif, thin, lower-case "e". This means "estimated".
> It is given Unicode code value 212E. You will see an
> example of it in the font "Lucida Sans Unicode" in the
> 1994 RIDT paper by me and Kris, which you composed for
> typesetting. I did not like our design, but Microsoft
> insisted that it have the same ugly look as the usual
> German version of it. In future fonts, we will re-design it.
> 
> This symbol is used on European food packages, candy bars,
> and other products to signify estimated weight or estimated
> volume.
> 
> [a few moments in time pass]
> 
> Eureka! I just checked a few bottles of French men's colognes.
> 
> An older bottle of Guerlain "Eau de Cologne Imperial" does
> not have the "e", but a small bottle of Annick Goutal
> "Sables" says on the small label on back:
> 
>         "e 30 ml - 1 fl. oz."
> 
> Here, the "e" is a large lower-case letter, enlarged to
> the capital height or figure height. This "e" is from the
> same font as the rest of the little label, a kind of
> Garamond style, rather than the very ugly sans-serif
> commonly used in some countries. I approve of the French
> perfumers having better typographic taste.
> 
> So, perhaps today the "e" = "estimated" symbol is now
> used to signify volume on perfume labels.

Ça me rappelle ma consternation d'enfant quand je voyais sur les pots de
confiture ou autre :
poids net : environ 500 grammes !

-- 
Jacques André
Irisa/Inria-Rennes,   Campus de Beaulieu,  F-35042 Rennes Cedex,  
France
Tél. : +33 2 99 84 73 50,  fax : +33 2 99 84 71 71, email :
jandre AT irisa.fr