The two bars below differ radically, although the barred objects have the same width. The lone A gets a wimpy short bar. (Roman font merely avoids possible confounding effects with slanted characters.) .EQ gfont R A bar ~~~ "\&A\&" bar .EN
If you put a bar over a string of As, the length of the bar increases by the same amount for every A you add, but that amount is not the length of a bar over a lone A. This nonuniformity is unfortunate. I imagine the design is intended to make the n=1 case look like the customary dictionary diacritical mark for long A. Ideally this usage would parallel that of other diacriticals, which have special glyphs. Doug
