On Jul 6, 2004, at 2:53 PM, Aaron Sherber wrote:
You're mostly right. I cut out from my original email another related idea, which is that the period in any typeface almost has the effect of being space itself, since there is so much whitespace which sits on top of the character. The idea is that sentence space ought to *look* slightly wider than word space, to set off sentences more. In monospaced fonts, this is accomplished with a double space, since there is so much space inherent in the font. In proportionately spaced fonts, the space which comes with (i.e., above) the period combines with the word space which follows to give the appearance of being slightly wider than word space alone. This is the part of the non sequitur that is missing.
Right, but the period accomplishes this in either kind of font, and, as I'm sure you realize, it does so even more in a monospace font, since the period character is relatively wider there.
If by "this" you mean double-spacing in monospaced fonts, then yes -- and "raging" may be too mellow a word. <g>
True!
But I think single-spacing in proportionately spaced fonts is an established rule. At least it is among typesetters and printers, and I think there's no reason for ordinary typists not to follow.
But also no reason to jump on them and call them ignorant when they don't. You're right that it was the rule for typesetters. On the machines I worked on (Compugraphic) consecutive space characters weren't even allowed. If you wanted extra space you'd have to code it in some other way.
Typesetting per se doesn't even exist anymore, or only barely. Desktop publishing takes its place, but there are plenty of things that just aren't the same. Line-spacing, for example, has a completely different paradigm now. There are a lot of things we routinely did in typesetting that aren't done now. A few things aren't even possible. Most are possible in the better programs but rarely are. In my opinion, typographic standards have declined considerably in the past 20 years.
With all due respect, Mark, I have training and experience as a typesetter (letterpress), and every single one of my respected teachers and all of the modern texts I have seen leave no question about the incorrectness of double-spacing after a sentence in a proportionately spaced font, unless a specific contrarian style is desired. As I said before, sometimes sentence space is made *slightly* more generous, but never as much as 2 word spaces.
I too worked as a professional typesetter, and you're right about the standard. The only thing I would add is that typesetting always taught a single space after a period for ANY font, not just a proportionally spaced one.
I believe the monospace-vs-proportional is a giant red herring. Standard typography never adopted double-spacing. The double-spacing habit arose in typewriting (but apparently only a certain large segment withint typewriting) for reasons unrelated to monospace fonts.
The passage you quoted earlier implied that double-spacing after a period originated in the Victorian era. I was under the impression is was a more recent habit, dating from some time around the 1930s. I'm going to keep an eye out for typewritten manuscripts from early in the 20th century which would shed light on this.
mdl
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