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Date:         Wed, 21 May 2014 04:34:04 +0700
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From: Chris Rowley <ca_rowley@YAHOO.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Unicode math
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Status: R

On 20 May 2014, at 22:50, Barbara Beeton <bnb@AMS.ORG> wrote:

> i think maybe the "proper" thing
> to do is recommend declaring these
> multi-letter non-\mathrm strings
> as a special kind of operator name.

My personal logic as a user of such operators agrees largely with this.

But more simply, I think of them as something like: 

    \mathoperator {\mathtext {\textbf {Var}}}

Giving the new command:

     \mathtextopeator

And the declaration:

     \decaremathtextoperatorname

But we may need to distinguish operators from variables.  The variable case would include the case of 'variable names' that include spaces (I find it difficult to imagine an operator name with spaces but who knows?)

The rm case is then, as ever, special as the \mathtext etc is not needed unless spaces are used, but they do no harm.  But is there not also a need for 'unkerned regular roman text'?

More generally, there may well be some 'multiple-character' math objects that should not look like words (eg no kerning and certainly no ligatures!).

Chris

PS: the term 'identifier' is not, at least not until quite recently, ever used by math folk.