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List:       kde-doc-english
Subject:    Re: [kde-doc-english]small typo in kvoctrain.pot: one space too many
From:       Matt Gibson <gothick () gothick ! org ! uk>
Date:       2002-01-19 17:48:32
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On Saturday 19 January 2002 16:27 pm, Thomas Diehl wrote:
> IMO, this rule was meant for old typewriters, not for current textprograms.
> (At least in professional typesetting I can assure you that this is
> deprecated.)

This was fairly frequently discussed in alt.usage.english back when I could 
keep up with it.  I'll try to summarize, for anyone who's interested, but I'm 
sure there's still a lot of articles squirrelled away on Google, too.

Basically, there's a common desire to put a bigger gap between sentences than 
between parts of sentences (as separated by commas.)  This is because it 
reflects the way the sentences are spoken.  The two-spaces-after-a-comma rule 
came about with the advent of the typewriter, where it was the only way to 
produce the longer gap.  It continued because of (a) habit, and (b) 
typesetting systems which still can't cope with variable-spacing (for 
example, fixed-font-based systems like character terminals.)

Most people still seem to want the longer gap between sentences, but agree 
that two spaces can look like a pretty big gap, especially if you're not 
used to it.  So, for non-fixed font applications, people try to find ways of 
making the gap bigger, but not that big.

There's a reasonable split between two camps these days: there are people who 
think that you should write the source text still with the two spaces after 
the full stop, and that whatever rendering software is used should interpret 
this as a slightly longer gap than a one-space gap.  Alternatively, there are 
those who think that you should put a single space, and the rendering 
software should figure out where the ends of sentences are and add extra 
spaces between them.

Personally, I've always stuck two spaces after the full stop, because when I 
started out my writing, pretty much everything I did was in a fixed font, 
whether it was on a typewriter or a VT-100.

I still find that most things that render my text don't render it with a big 
enough gap unless I stick that extra space in there, but then I don't go near 
high-end typesetting software very often.  Or maybe it's just because I'm too 
old to change my habits :)  I certainly find that the extra space makes 
longer paragraphs easier on the eye; slightly less challenging to read, if 
you get my meaning.

M

-- 
"It's the small gaps between the rain that count,
 and learning how to live amongst them"
		-- Jeff Noon
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