On Aug 10, 2015, at 7:14 AM, Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:
> Am Montag 10 August 2015, 16:20:56 schrieb Frederick FN Noronha फ्रेड्रिक
> नोरोन्या
> *فريدريك نورونيا:
>> LyX tends to add spaces after fullstops. It looks a bit excessive
>> sometimes. How do I reduce/avoid this pls? FN
>
> This is the so called "French spacing" which is common in some languages.
> Look
> here how to switch it off globally or for specific languages:
>
> http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/210254/babels-selectlanguage-resets-frenchspacing
>
> Jürgen
See this link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sentence_spacing
for the interesting history of spacing between sentences. One snippet:
With the advent of the typewriter in the late 19th century, French and English
typists adopted approximations of standard spacing practices to fit the
limitations of the typewriter itself. French typists used a single space
between sentences, consistent with the typeset French spacing technique,
whereas English typists used a double space.
• French spacing inserted spaces around most punctuation marks, but
single-spaced after sentences, colons, and semicolons.[3]
• English spacing removed spaces around most punctuation marks, but
double-spaced after sentences, colons, and semicolons.[4]
These approximations were taught and used as the standard typing techniques in
French and English-speaking countries.[5] For example, T. S. Eliot typed rather
than wrote the manuscript for his classic The Waste Land between 1920 and 1922,
and used only English spacing throughout: double-spaced sentences.[6]
Historically, "French spacing" referred to single-spacing between sentences. In
calling the command that forces this single-spacing \frenchspacing, Knuth was
following this historical terminology.
On this topic, the typographer's bible, The Elements of Typographic Style by
Robert Bringhurst, has this to say:
2.1.4 Use a single word space between sentences.
In the nineteenth century, which was a dark and inflationary age in typography
and type design, many compositors were encouraged to stuff extra space between
sentences. Generations of twentieth-century typists were then taught to do the
same, by hitting the spacebar twice after every period. Your typing as well as
your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint Victorian habit. As
a general rule, no more than a single space is required after a period, a colon
or any other mark of punctuation. Larger spaces (e.g., en spaces) are
themselves punctuation.
The rule is usually altered, however, when setting classical
Latin and Greek, romanized Sanskrit, phonetics or other kinds of texts in which
sentences begin with lowercase letters. In the absences of a capital, a full
en space (M/2) between sentences will generally be welcome.
Bruce