[texhax] "@" : vowel or glottal stop ? (was : Some puzzling TeX)

[Philipp Stephani]

Am 19.02.2011 17:26, schrieb Heiko Oberdiek:
> On Sat, Feb 19, 2011 at 02:33:36PM +0100, Paul Isambert wrote:
> 
>> Le 19/02/2011 14:14, Philip Taylor (Webmaster, Ret'd) a écrit :
>>>
>>>
>>> Heiko Oberdiek wrote:
>>>> In my taste, \@firstofone is much more clear
>>>> than \first at fone. "@" is used for many purposes,
>>>> as marker for internal commands, as separator,
>>>> as prefix, ..., but using as vowel it's counterintuitive
>>>> in my opinion.
>>>
>>> Then you must have read about LaTeX before reading
>>> The TeXbook, so Leslie had already subversively
>>> indoctrinated you without your realising it :-)
>>
>> Alas, Phil, one can be a plain TeX user and not agree with Don
> 
> Knuth uses different rules in plain.tex. Thus also \@firstofone
> is covered:
> 
> \@if
> \@midfalse, \@midtrue
> \@ins

That may be because (as Uwe said) he replaces only a, e, and o, but not
i and u. \midf at lse would have been possible, but inconsistent with
\iffalse etc.