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List:       kde-i18n-doc
Subject:    Re: kaffeine and typographical conventions
From:       Nicolas Goutte <nicolasg () snafu ! de>
Date:       2005-10-05 12:20:55
Message-ID: 200510051420.55625.nicolasg () snafu ! de
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On Tuesday 04 October 2005 09:59, Natalie wrote:
> Nicolas Goutte - Monday 03 October 2005 15:55 [Re: kaffeine and
>
> typographical conventions]:
> >  Just a note: having a (non-breakable) space before punctuation
> > characters is mandatory in some languages like for example French.
> > (And I do not think that it is due to typewriters.)
>
> I searched through my own collection of books, articles from magazines
> and newspapers, ... French punctuation seems to have the same rules
> as English punctuation.

Good, then the word "mandatory" put alone was not right.

What I have written is partially wrong, as the mandatory space is not before 
all punctuation signs (but only before :;!? characters (and inside one type 
of quotes)).

However as far as I know, the rule of having a non-breaking space before some 
punctuation signs, is a rule of the French translation of KDE. (That is 
mainly what I meant.)

I have checked quickly in a few French books (and some newsletters) that I had 
at hand. Mostly the space before a : character is there.

Such a rule is also what is explained at the section about punctuation of the 
book "Lexique des règles typographiques en usage à l'Imprimerie nationale".
(That is why I suppose that it has little to do with typewriters, as 
typesetting seems to have that rule too.)

As for knowing if such a rule is always applied in practise in a French text 
or not, this is probably another question.

>
> Then I googled a bit ...
>
> Three links:
>
> http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponctuation

That seem to tell the same rule.

> http://smf.emath.fr/Publications/Formats/e-doc.pdf
> http://www.fao.org/documents/show_cdr.asp?url_file=/docrep/004/AC339f/AC339
>f01.htm
>
> Cheers,
>
> Natalie

Have a nice day!


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