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Fw: Grammatical Sasquatch? Re: Grammatical foot in big mouth
Subject:Fw: Grammatical Sasquatch? Re: Grammatical foot in big mouth From:Elizabeth Ross <beth -at- VCUBED -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 26 Jul 1999 17:40:24 -0400
Words into Type (Third Edition, Prentice Hall, c 1974, i.e. before desktop
publishing) says:
"Punctuation. After a question mark or an exclamation point within a
sentence the spacing should be less than that used after periods, usually an
en if sentences are em spaced."
This tells me that proper typesetting involves the use of an em space after
the period of a sentence (commonly) and that this em space is usually a big
larger than other spaces within the sentence. So, if I'm typing on my
typewriter, which only has one width of a space, and I wish to simulate
typesetting, I will double space after my period so that space is larger
than the other spaces in the sentence. If I'm using the fixed-width font on
my computer, I may do the same thing. Proportional fonts use an em space
after the period as part of the font metrics. I fail to see how this
qualifies as a "fractured fairy tale."
N.B. - There is no index entry for French spacing or English spacing. The
book includes sections on typographical style for English, Danish, Dutch,
French, German, Classic Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Latin, Norwegian, Polish,
Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish.
I've not heard of this English/French spacing before. Are there any websites
available?
Elizabeth Ross
Technical Writer
V3 Semiconductor Corp.
beth -at- vcubed -dot- com http://www.vcubed.com
----- Original Message -----
From: Dick Margulis <ampersandvirgule -at- worldnet -dot- att -dot- net>
| Elizabeth,
|
| I am not going to burden the list with this, because it has been done to
| death, but you are misinformed about the origin of the practice.
|
| I think the confusion arises from the distinction between French spacing
| and English spacing (although these days French spacing is more common
| in England and English spacing is more common in France--go figure).
|
| In any case, you have your typographical history hopelessly garbled. So
| I hope you do some reading on the subject or, should that idea not
| appeal to you, I hope you stop spreading fractured fairy tales under the
| "actually" rubric.
|
| Have a good day,
|
| Dick
|
