Unicode Symbol for “e.g.” (exempli gratia)

Just replaced all occurrences of “e.g.” in my writings to “ℯℊ”. There's about one thousand replacements.

• ℯ (U+212F: SCRIPT SMALL E)
• ℊ (U+210A: SCRIPT SMALL G)

Why? The “full stop” (aka “period”) symbol should be used only for sentence end, full stop! Ideally, each symbol should have only one single purpose, context free. So, i want to get rid of the dots in “e.g.”, but writing just “eg” is a bit intrusive. That is, it's not easy to understand.

So, a better solution is to find a standard symbol that represent the “e.g.”. For example, in Letterlike Symbols (Unicode block).

℀ ℁ ℂ ℃ ℄ ℅ ℆ ℇ ℈ ℉ ℊ ℋ ℌ ℍ ℎ ℏ ℐ ℑ ℒ ℓ ℔ ℕ № ℗ ℘ ℙ ℚ ℛ ℜ ℝ ℞ ℟ ℠ ℡ ™ ℣ ℤ ℥ Ω ℧ ℨ ℩ K Å ℬ ℭ ℮ ℯ ℰ ℱ Ⅎ ℳ ℴ ℵ ℶ ℷ ℸ ℹ ℺ ℻ ℼ ℽ ℾ ℿ ⅀ ⅁ ⅂ ⅃ ⅄ ⅅ ⅆ ⅇ ⅈ ⅉ ⅊ ⅋ ⅌ ⅍ ⅎ ⅏

〔see Unicode Search 🔎〕

Been trying to find a dedicated Unicode symbol for the Latin “exempli gratia”, but it doesn't seem to exist.

Then, i tried several alternatives, but none are satisfactory. Replacing them by full word “for example” is too long. And “example” is also too long, but also there the meaning is slightly different. “e.g.” is “for example”, and usually followed by short concrete examples. While, “Example”, is more of a single full example.

Then, i thought of the abbrev “ex”. It's not good because it has too many meanings. For example, it may read as the letter X, which is a common name to many things (e.g. Xmas, X-man, X-window, eXtreme, etc), and can mean like “ex-boyfriend”. The “ex.” itself has a ending dot issue. The “ex.” itself isn't in common practice.

Also tried the Unicode arrow:

➲ (U+27B2: CIRCLED HEAVY WHITE RIGHTWARDS ARROW).

For example, “many fruits have color yellow (➲ banana, pineapple.)”. But this is cryptic in becoming, the approachment of symbolic logic.

So, for now, i've settled on “ℯℊ”. So far, my feeling towards it is it's not bad.

Actually, the use of “e.g.” is kinda passé. It's mostly used in academic writing, and i think it also dwindled in past 2 decades. It's there because scientific publications used to be in Latin — the lingua franca of science (as French for the elite, aristocrats, and English for the plebeians, philistines.). I picked up “e.g.” in the early 1990s, when i was reading lots math. Then, i noticed in past few years, i developed a particular style of writing, with lots nested parenthesis and lots “e.g.” inside parenthesis (e.g. like this (or even this!)). However, “e.g.” is one of those fart of highbrowism. i.e. you don't need it, really. (and you don't need “i.e.” neither. (they are there to make a impression on readers about your erudition, most excellently done by academicians)) In my writings, there are 2 types. One is technical exposition (e.g. my programing tutorials). There, i wish to impart info without the nonsense of belles-lettres. The other type, is essays, aka rants, where i sway and spin run-on sentences and whatnot to convey, insult, expose, ridicule. So, in my tech writing, there's really no place for “e.g.”, but i've already used it a lot and find it convenient. A real better solution that fits my principle is to completely get rid of any “e.g.” in my tech writings. Rewrite to avoid it, or simply spell out “For example, …”. O, but that's so verbose. Maybe i'll decide to do that in the future. (the one advantage of using unique symbol for unique meaning is that i can simply replace all occurrence of “ℯℊ” to “for example” if i decide to do so in the future. (except when it happens in meta-usage, like this page.))

also of interest is that, in Google Chrome or Safari browser, you can type just “eg” and it'll find “ℯℊ”. See: Unicode Character Equivalence Support in Web Browsers .