Using two spaces to separate sentences was the way I learned to type in
my high school typing class taught in 1956. The use of a space before a
question mark or exclamation mark is not normative. I use it sometimes
to make it distinct from a letter "l" which looks very similar on my
computer screen. See here: "ll!I" which is two lower case 'L' followed
by the exclamation mark, and a capital letter "i." On my computer screen
they all are very close in appearance.
I have no explanation for a question mark having a preceding space and I
consider it just plain wrong.
Joe Conner, Poulsbo, WA USA
Johnny Rosenberg wrote:
As a non English speaking person that's very interesting. In Swedish
there has never been an extra space required and I started to learn
English at school in 1975, and nobody ever mentioned an extra space.
So exactly when did this change from being required to NOT being
required?
On the other hand, in 1975 we didn't use computers at school so maybe
that's why they didn't mention anything about spaces
And I am curious about another thing as well: I have noticed that many
people writing in English adds an extra space right before a ! and a
?, which is very ugly and at least in Swedish very wrong. Has that
been required too in the past?
Johnny Rosenberg
Sweden ? Switzerland
2009/12/5 James Wilde <[email protected]>:
Sorry to barge in here, but in normal usage you are right, Michael, that two
spaces after a full stop and colon are no longer required.
However, I have been told that manuscripts intended for printing should still
have two spaces after full stop and colon, to make it easier for the typesetter
to see the difference between full stop and comma, and colon and semi-colon
respectively. For this reason also, it is traditional for manuscripts to be in
a fixed font, and courier 12 pt is the norm, both in the film world (where it
isn't intended for printing of course) and in the book world. I must admit
that, like John Gilchrist, it is so ingrained in my system, that I
automatically put two spaces in the appropriate places, but then I've been
typing for nearly fifty years, so it's had time to become a habit!
I'm not saying that J K Rowling wouldn't have been published if she'd sent her
manuscript in Arial or something, but she no doubt found it easier to stick to
the rules.
//James
On Dec 5, 2009, at 12:05 , Michael Adams wrote:
On Sat, 05 Dec 2009 03:59:59 -0600
Came this utterance formulated by John Gilchrist to my mailbox:
*How can I automatically place two spaces between the period at the
end of a sentence, and the begining of the next sentence.*
Firstly - two spaces at the end of each sentence is no longer a
requirement of English.
But if you insist that it is a requirement of yours, use "Edit - Find
and Replace" then replace ". " with ". ". It can also be suitably
ammended to cater for question and exclamation marks.
What i would have done is not copied and pasted but "File - Open"ed the
.DOC files instead. They will open fine in OpenOffice.org.
NOTE to all - If copy and paste does strip extra white spaces, is this
behaviour expected or counterable?
--
Michael
All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall
be well
- Julian of Norwich 1342 - 1416
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected]
For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected]
For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected]
For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected]
For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
