More lay description for "Use old style figures"?

[Joel Kulesza]

On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 12:35 AM Jürgen Spitzmüller <spitz at lyx.org> wrote:

>
> As you wish, but I don't think this will help many people. I really
> doubt "antique numerals" and "medieval-style numerals" is so much more
> known than "old style figures". I'd rather describe the feature.
>

One additional thought for everyone's consideration: it seems like this
becomes a matter of whether LyX is approached from a LaTeX or more generic
typographical perspective.  From the LaTeX standpoint, figure is well
defined and does not (seemingly) correlate to what's being discussed.  I
imagine this is what caused Scott's confusion.  Conversely, from a rigorous
typographical perspective (and for consistency with other software),
perhaps "figure" is the right term.

Regarding who the average user is: are we more likely to find LyX users who
are familiar with LaTeX or typography?  I suspect the former.  If so, the
word "figure" immediately makes one think "picture" whereas numeral calls
to mind a number/character.  I can imagine how hard it will be to convince
colleagues that "old style figure" is more clear even if it is convention
(think metric versus imperial units).

On a personal note, this has been an interesting discussion, and I
appreciate it, but I sympathize with Scott and would be totally confused by
"old style figure."  Right or wrong, the first thing I thought of was a
graphical filter that would have rendered something similar to a
15th-century illuminated manuscript.

Thanks,
Joel
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