Typography B‑class Mid‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Typography, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles related to Typography on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.TypographyWikipedia:WikiProject TypographyTemplate:WikiProject TypographyTypography B This article has been rated as B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale.

This entry could really use info on what formatting standards demand / reject french spacing. I have no idea. Rycanada 01:43, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Someone French-spaced the entry but Wikipedia formatting ignored it. Should we keep it, remove it, or format it so the entry is French spaced (this would be funny and self-referential, along with being my vote)? I've reverted it to traditional for now. Astrochris 05:45, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What is the rule for Wikipedia. French spacing or not ? Hektor 12:00, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It does not matter - the MediaWiki software suppress excess white space - example:

Sentences with French spacing.  Sentences with French spacing.  Sentences with French spacing.

is rendered as:

Sentences with French spacing. Sentences with French spacing. Sentences with French spacing.

and

Sentences without French spacing. Sentences without French spacing. Sentences without French spacing.

is rendered as:

Sentences without French spacing. Sentences without French spacing. Sentences without French spacing.

See? -- ALoan (Talk) 12:39, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, this is a browser-imposed consequence of HTML's Display Standards, rather than MediaWiki-specific. All runs of consecutive spaces are collapsed to a single space at display-time. See the overhauled article for notes on how to force double-spacing in HTML/browsers. Saltation (talk) 23:22, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It certainly does matter since Wikipedia is edited with tools that honor double spaces and the articles are likely to include other means of publication than through a web browser. So the question still stands, what is the policy on Wikipedia? -- Henriok (talk) 13:23, 24 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think this article might have it backwards. As I recall, French spacing is the practice of only putting one space after the period. That is certainly the case in TeX, where the macro \frenchspacing makes TeX not enlarge spaces after periods.

That would be because the macro is telling TeX that the user is using French spacing. Expanding two spaces to four is obviously undesirable, so there is a macro to tell TeX to change its default behaviour. — Saxifrage ✎ 06:59, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That explanation doesn't make any sense, because TeX, like HTML, suppresses multiple spaces (unless you force them with control sequences). —Blotwell 10:54, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think TeX just has it wrong. The top page of results on google for "french spacing" all seem to be using it the same way this article does. And, unusually, only three of them are copies of this article! JulesH 15:32, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any evidence that the double space between sentences was ever commonly used in France? I always thought of this as an exclusively U.S.-originated typographic fashion, which was practically unknown in Europe or non-English-language typography, at least before the influx of U.S.-developed typesetting software in the 1980s (including TeX). Markus Kuhn 14:00, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This has little to do with the spacing customs actually practiced in France. In English there’s a term for it, and the term happens to be French spacing. Now, how many spaces that term refers to, I have no idea anymore. Looking at Google hits, I see people using the term in both the one-space and the two-space senses, and I don’t see either definition clearly dominating the other. If someone used the term with me, I’d probably assume two spaces, but I’d ask for clarification if I could. --Rob Kennedy 03:32, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I too believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with this article. After reading several French references on punctuation and spacing, it seems clear that (at least contemporary) French practice is the use of a single space after a sentence (same as in other Continental languages): [1] [2] [3]. This matches perfectly Knuth's use of the term "French spacing" and is the exact opposite of how this article describes it. It is true, however, that French uses a no-break space before semicolon, colon, exclamation mark and question mark (e.g. "On écrira : Attention !"), whereas English and many other languages do not. Markus Kuhn 18:19, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can tell, none of your three links says anything about inter-sentence spacing. The first definitely doesn’t; for the other two, I’m relying on Google’s translation into English. They talk about whether to put space before other punctuation, such as colons and question marks. At best, the third link explicitly says to put space after a period. It doesn’t say how many spaces. --Rob Kennedy 03:32, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This article is not about the French typography (that is, typographical practice in France) - it is about the typographical practice as employed in English which is termed "French spacing". As the article suggests, I suspect is has nothing to do with the French typography, and everything to do with "French" being used as an adjective for "fancy". -- ALoan (Talk) 09:29, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The article did make much stronger claims about French typography until I edited to be more cautious yesterday. My main objection remains though. The article has only one single reference for the claim that in American typography, the term "French spacing" refers to the "fancy" practice of having a larger space at the end of a sentence, and that is merely a blog post (by John S. Rhodes) quoting an email (by Sam Harris) to that end. This single reference currently stands against the entire TeX community, which has for more than 20 years now used the term "French spacing" (\frenchspacing) to refer to the normal Continental-style single space at the end of a sentence, in contrast to "American typewriter spacing" or "non-French spacing" (\nonfrenchspacing), which uses two spaces at the end of each sentence. Given the very well-established use of the term in the TeX community, I believe that far better references (e.g. several well-established typography textbooks) are needed before the article can claim that the TeX terminology is not the most common one today. Markus Kuhn 11:04, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Marcus Kuhn's and the original anonymous poster's concerns are valid and their observations are correct.

The confusion has arisen from the relatively recent Americanization which reversed the meaning of French spacing, or at least attempted to. For some Americans in ~ the last decade, French spacing means double-spacing. For everyone else, and for ALL Americans before the mid-90s, French spacing means single-spacing.

I have overhauled the article to provide the (huge amount of) missing historical and factual information. Saltation (talk) 23:22, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This article could have some examples that explain french spacing. Especially the rules for quoting, like « Oh my god ! » ; this would be of great use. Also, the article is missing some information on why proportionally spaced fonts have made French spacing redundant. Thanks, --Abdull 12:22, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We need a separate article on French punctuation or Punctuation in French. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:39, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Or better, on punctuation in other languages generally. The quotation mark page actually has a fantastic amount of information, but who's going to look there? —Blotwell 10:57, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But I don't think most people who use French spacing in English would go so far as to take up other French conventions. I know I wouldn't. —Casey J. Morris 16:34, 21 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But they might be trying to research how punctuation works in French. Wikipedia isn't really supposed to be a how-to repository. — Saxifrage ✎ 21:06, 21 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's a diffrent topic than this and doesn't really belong on the same page, so a disambiguation would be in order. I don't see how it makes it a "how-to" to focus on only that to which the term "French spacing" typically refers. —Casey J. Morris 22:58, 23 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I thought you were suggesting that the only reason to have an article on French punctuation was so that people could use it, thus my comment that Wikipedia isn't about howtos. Rather, an article on French punctuation would be useful simply as an article about an encyclopedic subject. You mean your comment above is not an objection? — Saxifrage ✎ 06:51, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't object to the information's being on Wikipedia, I just object to it being here. —Casey J. Morris 01:54, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've created a disambig page, moved this to French spacing (English) and done a rudimentary job on Punctuation in French. Feel free to comment.

The parentheses are absolutely unnecessary since the other page is named differently, so I object to that. And the Puncutuation in French article is so perfunctory and sloppy as to be useless. —Casey J. Morris 05:57, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

—CuiviénenT|C, Saturday, 13 May 2006 @ 02:34 UTC

Thanks for being bold, but I think we should move French spacing (English) back to French spacing, and add a "See also: Punctuation in French". -- ALoan (Talk) 20:10, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The lede says this: “There is no one correct answer according to the Chicago Manual of Style…,” but I can’t find where the manual says that. In the 15th edition, there are two entries in the index for “spacing, between sentences.” One is §2.12 (under the heading “Keyboarding: General Instructions”):

Line spacing and word spacing. … A single character space, not two spaces, should be left after periods at the ends of sentences (both in manuscript and in final, published form) and after colons. …

The other is §6.11 (under the heading “Typographic and Aesthetic Considerations”):

Space between sentences. In typeset matter, one space, not two (in other words, a regular word space), follows any mark of muctuation that ends a sentence, whether a period, a colon, a question mark, and exclamation point, or closing quotation marks.

Could someone please provide a more specific reference for the claim that Chicago doesn’t pick sides? Otherwise I’ll change the article to indicate that Chicago and AP concur. --Rob Kennedy 07:24, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This has bothered me for awhile, too. I went to the CMOS website and found this link [4] which seem to confirm your citations from the print manual. I'm also going to remove the 'authority' subclause from lede. Hwonder talk contribs 17:20, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm personally convinced that the term refers to double spaces, but I've done a survey of sources to see what we come up with.

Apparently professional sources:

• http://www2.ncsu.edu/ncsu/grammar/Typo3.html
• http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legalwriting/2006/12/french_spacing.html
• http://misterthorne.org/set_in_style/2007/01/27/legally-exceeding-a-limit/
• http://www.dynamicgraphics.com/dgm/Article/28654
• http://www.pma-online.org/scripts/shownews.cfm?id=1424

Non-professional sources:

• http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Bad_20Science_20Theme_20Park
• http://www.bmartin.co.uk/

Non-professional sources:

• http://blogs.msdn.com/fontblog/commentrss.aspx?PostID=488794 (n.b. article also mentions TeX so may be influenced by Knuth's definition)

Comments at http://www.netlib.org/bibnet/tools/emacs/ltxmode/ltxmode.dif seem to imply that the \frenchspacing TeX macro is intended to emulate the punctuation style used in French text, which is not the subject of this article.

I think we can conclude that the vast majority of English-speakers, when they say "French spacing", are referring to double spacing, despite the fact that single spacing is typically used in French-language text. JulesH 18:55, 9 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the dispute tag, due to the pretty conclusive search results seen above. I've also removed the assertion that the practice is only common in the US, because it was unsourced (and I've seen it in wide use in the UK as well, so is probably wrong too). JulesH 19:00, 9 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, the "conclusive search results" are actually one page - www.dynamicgraphics.com (and the author is simply mistaken). Two of the others are broken links, one is a blog, and one is a lawyer saying "I didn't know this was called French spacing until today". Bleargh. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.73.164.171 (talk) 10:30, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We currently claim that double spaces after periods originated with typewriters, citing a random website as evidence. This isn't really a reliable source, and furthermore isn't correct—double-spacing after periods was widespread prior to the invention of the typewriter (here is an article in Dynamic Graphics magazine mentioning that it was "common in books before the 19th century", though a still-more-reliable source than that would be preferable). --Delirium 22:59, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're correct in essence. The confusion arises from the recent Americanisation reversing the meaning of French spacing, which was not mentioned in the article. Although the claim re Typewriter Origin of double-spacing (as opposed to em-spacing) is correct, essentially all the other typographic history and style claims are post-hoc reality-editing rationalizations of a relatively recent style preference. I call this sort of revisionism "Justifiction".

In particular, em-spaced ("double-spaced") sentences preceded typewriters by several hundred years. Your awareness of the earlier typography and consequently of the logical discrepancy re the typewriter/double-space assertion indicates you have read or studied far more widely than most contributors on this topic, here and elsewhere.

I've done a major overhaul of the article. References passim. Possibly overkill, but I profoundly object to revisionism. Retcons are for comicbooks, not for real life.

Saltation (talk) 23:22, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, the previous version lifted the bulk of its material verbatim from the Late Night Engineer's post on the same topic. But did so without attribution or any indication of permission to do so. Saltation (talk) 23:22, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

First off, the excellent entry on French Spacing prompted me to get a login for Wikipedia--terrific work that really demonstrates the value of Wikipedia. This might seem like a nuisance topic (spacing after a period), but the history of why people are choosing one convention over the other is absolutely fascinating.

Regardless, I came across an interesting example that fairly well refutes double-spacing being brought about by monospace typewriters: The United States Declaration of Independence. An image is available here at the Library of Congress: [5]. Note that extra spacing occurs after periods and after commas. When you consider the importance of this document to the authors, I can't imagine that any compromises would be made in the typesetting. Notice that it is full-justified as well. Mphtower (talk) 04:06, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent find, Mphtower. I have incorporated it in the main article. Many thanks. Saltation (talk) 01:07, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The link that's now in the article points to the wikipedia article on The American Declaration of Independence. However, that article has like five pictures of the DofI, some hand written, some printed (and none of them seems to be the same as the www.loc.gov link above). So it's unclear which picture the link in the article is pointing to--I certainly don't know! Mcswell (talk) 00:46, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just why it winds through typing, typesetting and typing, in that order, is unclear. The distinction between the two may be unclear to many readers, too (and whether "typographical" applies to both).

What the hell does this mean? "French spacing always means single-spacing of sentences, semicolons, and colons, but with additional spacings between most punctuation and text".

Query whether this AmEng-vs-other-varieties is true. Where are the references?

The lead should stand alone as comprehensible. Currently, it confuses.

"French spacing" is a French and English typographical term with three meanings:

1. in Typing: the standard French typist's approximation (with single-width spaces) of the spacing rules of traditional typesetting.
2. in Typesetting: a relatively recent synonym for traditional typographic spacing rules: the traditional typesetting spacing rules standardized for several centuries but since the 60s, following extreme commercial pressure on English-language typographers, only preserved in common use by French typesetting.
3. in Typing: in an Americanization dating to the mid-90s, the standard English typists' approximation (with single-width spaces) of traditional typesetting's spacing rules.

In common usage, French spacing refers to one of the typists' approximations:

1. In America today, French spacing often means double-spacing of sentences, semicolons, and colons.
2. In all other English-speaking countries, in all French-speaking countries, and in America before the mid-90s, French spacing always means single-spacing of sentences, semicolons, and colons, but with additional spacings between most punctuation and text.

Tony (talk) 00:43, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I have no idea what it's saying.Petero9 (talk) 01:36, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What's up with the commented list of links at the top of the article? I moved it to the bottom (along with the bot settings) but they were moved back. Note that they're pushing the first line of the article down quite a bit. —Werson (talk) 02:59, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Both Comments are meta-important to the article. The bot-protection is necessary to avoid a current AWB problem which mangles the typographic space examples, and the standard location for these items is at the top of the article, particularly when they're (hopefully) temporary. The Referential Integrity warning explains itself and, again, needs to be at the top of the article, by definition. Warnings are useless if no one is aware of them. "Beware of the Leopard"

"BE CAREFUL MAKING STRUCTURAL CHANGES. YOU MAY NEED TO CHANGE OTHER ARTICLES TO MATCH. This article covers a "hot" topic for many designers and typographers, and is linked to and deep-linked to from many articles -- be sure to review ALL their usages if you make any structural changes. Please be thorough"

They do not push down the first line of the article at all.* They are comments. They are invisible.

If you're worried about someone choosing to edit the article's code then being unable to cope with the concept of scrolling down slightly more than they would normally have to to find the text they want to change, then I suggest you might be better off worrying about the quality of edits that level of intellect would make. Saltation (talk) 03:47, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• [EDIT: I beg your pardon; there was one spurious blank line moving the article down one line — now deleted]

"If you're worried about someone choosing to edit the article's code then being unable to cope with the concept of scrolling down slightly more than they would normally have to to find the text they want to change, then I suggest you might be better off worrying about the quality of edits that level of intellect would make."

Calm down, I didn't say any of that. All I said was a) what is the purpose of it?, and b) it's creating excess whitespace. You addressed both, so thanks. I have to say, I think the link list pretty superfluous, since every article has this problem, and deep links should always be checked. But it's not my article so I'll be on my way. —Werson (talk) 22:41, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

When you said "they're pushing the first line of the article down quite a bit" I assumed you were talking about where they're pushing the first line of the article down quite a bit. A browser/MediaWiki bug with Mac copypaste had inserted only one line above the article, so it seemed you were talking about the code not the article. My apologies for apparently misunderstanding you. Saltation (talk) 20:49, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One editor appears to believe "profit" is a pejorative term rather than a descriptive term with a very specific meaning. And has deleted all reference to it.
Again.
The resulting text was at best misleading and at worst false. Amusingly, despite this highly POV approach (believing that profit is never fair ("economic rent") therefore believing use of the word implies a negative connotation), the previously value-neutral text was repeatedly labelled POV, implying the changes were NPOV. They were not. They were assertions of a preferred POV.
Similarly, use of the standard print-industry term "low end" was deleted, and, again amusingly, use of the standard print-industry term "high end" was not. These asymmetric changes were also impliedly labelled NPOV. They were not. They were assertions of a preferred POV.
Similarly, and less important but certainly indicative of the problem, and again amusingly, the editor apparently believes "regression" is pejorative rather than a very concise value-neutral summary of part of a change process. Either that, or the editor had forgotten the earlier parts of the article. Assuming the editor was not negligent, this change too was an assertion of a preferred POV.

Assuming that an editor or a reader must dislike a fact does not invalidate a fact.
Imputing non-existent elitism into standard technical terms does not mean they suddenly acquire that meaning.*
Personal POVs have no place in an encyclopedia.
Deleting encyclopaedic information reduces the usefulness of an article.

* The reverse elitist-meaning is true, amusingly, in typography. As very clearly described in the article, an elitist element among typographers is seeking to enforce low-end spacing practice, not high-end. This has been widespread in that element for nearly 20 years but dates back at least to Dowding's landmark attempts in the 1950s (again: as described in the article). From a normal reader's perspective, "high-end" and "low-end" are merely standard terms for particular areas of the industry. From an elitist's perspective, "high-end" would be read as pejorative and "low-end" as aspirational. The reverse is true for an anti-elitist. Neither elitism nor anti-elitism is NPOV.

To be clear: high-end typography is now considered low-class by elitists (the reverse was true in the 19th Century); low-end typography is now considered high-class by elitists.

More importantly, both terms have a long history of being used in a strictly technical sense without elitist or anti-elitist connotations.

Insisting they be read with elitist or anti-elitist connotations implies POV.

Technical terms are technical terms — they stand in their own right. Possibly their inventors and their industry could have chosen better ones. However, it is not Wikipedia's mission to change the world but to summarise the world using the world's own words.

And when describing a motivation for a fundamental and profound change in a global industry and its memes, describing that motivation is appropriate. Ignoring Agency theory is a fundamental error.

This article has been carefully written and proofread by a number of professional typographers and typesetters to maintain neutral phrasing throughout while still communicating a maximum of information as concisely as possible. Please do not muddle the concept of description with that of normative political rhetoric.
Please do not introduce politics into this article.
Saltation (talk) 20:49, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please remember to assume good faith. Assuming good faith is a fundamental part of wikiquette and is expected of all editors. I have no desire to insert politics into this article.

First, I stand by my contention that the edits I made helped this article move to a NPOV. If more non-NPOV wording remains, please remove it as well. The word "regression", while having a precise dictionary meaning, connotes movement from a desired state to a less desired state. Therefore I (and another editor before me) changed it to the neutral and still factually accurate "changed". (Compare to the discussion in WP:AVOID contrasting the word "say" versus the words "noted" and "reported" for a discussion of implicit bias. While it may be technically true that someone "reports" something, the word imparts the bias that the person is also correct. Similarly, while it may technically be true that something "regressed", the word imparts the bias that it also got worse.) As for "profit" and "profit-driven", all business entities are profit-driven, so specific emphasis of this fact implies to the reader that their actions are therefore less-than-honorable (i.e., that they value money over art or user concerns). It is not our place to judge motivations, merely to report them in an encyclopedic manner — and this is in fact done, by pointing out that cost was indeed a driving factor. The parenthetical "or perhaps profit" is particularly inappropriate, as its author means it to be read dripping with derision, which is completely unencyclopedic. Moreover, the terms "high end" and "low end", while they may be standard terms in the industry, carry with them specific connotations to the average reader (who are, after all, who we write for), either readings of which are POV, and thus also inappropriate. We cannot make words have only the meanings we wish, we can only deal with them as they are.

Second, you have also reverted my removal of extraneous embedded comments. Embedded comments are meant to be used for notes to future editors of the article, not for providing an editor's opinions about various matters discussed, or doubting the motivations of various quotations, et cetera. They certainly should not be used for passive-aggressive ridiculing of another well-meaning editor who requested a citation, whether such a citation was actually needed or not. Those comments should be removed and not inserted again. (Such passive-aggressiveness is also displayed above, this time towards me. Please, say what you mean. As the Zen of Python says, "explicit is better than implicit." This applies to more than just programming.)

Third, I find your statement that "this article has been carefully written and proofread by a number of professional typographers and typesetters to maintain neutral phrasing throughout" to be quite distressing, due to its implication that only professionals may have worthwhile contributions. Please remember that we do not own articles. I, for one, am grateful for your contributions to this article, and for the contributions you may have solicited from others, but remember that all articles can be improved in some way, and not just by professionals or by yourself. Indeed, sometimes an outsider's perspective is more helpful. Neutrality is not only a matter for professionals, it is a matter for all readers, and a fundamental pillar of Wikipedia. — confusionball (talk) 23:51, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

>"Please remember to assume good faith."

I did. The first time.

The nature of your subsequent edits here and elsewhere decided me to make the problem clear now rather than wait till my normal third-time-petard. As the saying goes: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

>"First, I stand by my contention that the edits I made helped this article move to a NPOV. If more non-NPOV wording remains, please remove it as well."

This article has been thoroughly and rigorously checked for NPOV by people very aware of, and very supportive of, Wikipedia's goals and policies. What remains is neutral, and very carefully worded.

>"specific emphasis of [profit] implies to the reader that their actions are therefore less-than-honorable (i.e., that they value money over art or user concerns)"

I'm afraid you're just digging yourself deeper.

>"cost was indeed a driving factor."

I'm afraid you're just digging yourself deeper.

To be clear: you either haven't read the article properly or you don't understand people nor businesses. Most businesses are not charities: they do not seek to lower costs in order to lower prices, out of some sense of altruism. My references to Agency theory and Economic rent were not casual. Price-Cost=Profit. People's careers and sometimes incomes are tied to profit. Price is fundamentally decoupled from cost, as even a casual examination of the market will show. People only drop prices to (attempt to) maintain or improve profit. Radical changes to operations are almost never primarily driven by cost, but by the cost change's effect.

You appear to believe being explicit about the effect, and the motivation, is a bad thing.

In your own (albeit quoted) words: "explicit is better than implicit."

>"The parenthetical "or perhaps profit" is particularly inappropriate, as its author means it to be read dripping with derision, which is completely unencyclopedic."

You're not so much digging yourself deeper here, as screaming "Everything you were concerned about? I so MEANT that." then hurling yourself into the centre of the earth.

Incidentally, I wrote that sentence. I can assure you, I wrote it with a keen eye to NPOV ("Economic rent") and with a keen eye to compressing a paragraph into a handful of words: I neither intended your imputed implication, nor anything remotely like it, nor has any proofreader inferred same.

Honi soit qui mal y pense.

It would be difficult to create a better example of the sheer dissonance between what is in the article and what you are implying into it.

>"Such passive-aggressiveness is also displayed above, this time towards me. Please, say what you mean."

Ah. I did actually.

And have again.

>"I find your statement that "this article has been carefully written and proofread by a number of professional typographers and typesetters to maintain neutral phrasing throughout" to be quite distressing, due to its implication that only professionals may have worthwhile contributions."

Again, you are implying vastly more into what was written than what was written. Talleyrand is frequently quoted (possibly apocryphally) as saying, on reading of a political opponent's death: "I wonder what he meant by that."

Please, do not introduce personal politics into simple statements of fact.

>"Indeed, sometimes an outsider's perspective is more helpful."

This is not an Insider-vs-Outsider thing. That's in your own mind only. This is a contribution thing.

Contributions have not been contested by virtue of being contributions -- you should have noted that other people's contributions have simply improved the article. You should also have noted that one of your own contributions has not merely improved the article but been actively extrapolated upon: your elegant pointing-up that the lead paragraphs inappropriately suggested currency instead of period-specificity. Everybody's first introduction to the topic now conforms to your personal contribution.

Please do not confuse distaste for crusades with dislike for contributions.

Saltation (talk) 02:34, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, I just want to let you guys know that I'm preparing an analysis and some recommendations to hopefully help resolve your dispute as objectively as possible. I should have it posted here in a few days. If anybody else has an opinion, feel free to post it here as well; fourth and fifth opinions can't hurt. : ) —Latiligence (talk) 17:52, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Opinion — I think it's clear we've got two very passionate, intelligent, devoted, educated, and articulate editors here. That's a good thing. What's not a good thing is that both Saltation (talk · contribs) and Confusionball (talk · contribs) are veering into problematic territory, including article ownership behaviour and MPOV. Such is the strength of each of their convictions that s/he is right and the other is wrong that little enduring good can come from tiebreaker opinions handing a win to either over the other, as it seems. As difficult as it will likely be for both of them, it is probably best if they both have a nice cup of tea and a sit down and leave at least the currently contentious portions of this article alone for awhile. In the best case, it'll evolve, perhaps in a direction that hadn't occurred to either of these two editors, and the problem will be obviated. In the worst case, both of these editors will have had some time to gain some perspective on the relative unimportance of the issues over which they're quarrelling. In the meantime, I urge both editors to study and ponder this carefully. —Scheinwerfermann (talk) 23:21, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Opinion - Personally, I've always preferred this. Although this is right up there.

A Note - Point taken. Point very much, in fact, borne in mind in the first Discussion post here, and again in my second.

I can see what this could appear like to the quick visitor. A standard human conflict-resolution approach is to achieve consensus by averaging emotion.

Unfortunately for the normal reaction, in a case where facts are more important than social memes the less destructive approach is to resile to facts. Yes, this is guaranteed to upset one or the other by the asymmetric treatment of their emotion. But one person's personal implied constructions (in this case, demonstrably wrong in a key area, as above) aren't necessarily equiweighted with everyone else's simpler view of the words "as they are wrote". This article is already (like porcupines having sex: very carefully) describing a topic that is subject to a great deal of emotion derived from particular social groups' strivings to determine a particular result. Lifting that conflict out of the participants and into the article, even in part, is not helpful to the article. Indeed, it's contrary to Wikipedia's encyclopedic principles.

A core tenet of wikipedia is: Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. Saltation (talk) 01:21, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response — I will not be drawn into a squabble you are evidently intent on having, except to take note for when it erupts into a full-blown edit war subject to the applicable repercussions. Your earlier post here on the talk page, replete with incivilities including sarcastic sotto voce parentheticals and dismissive "most amusingly" appraisals of another editor's position, demonstrates amply that you are very evidently not interested in neutrality on this topic. This latest reply to a requested third opinion, in which you carry on trying to justify your insistence that you're right, further highlights your apparent inability to edit neutrally. You asked for a third opinion, so please be advised that your persistent claims of rectitude and selective pretense of neutrality work efficiently against you, and your attempt to use unnecessarily recherché words in an apparent effort to demonstrate your superior intellect when challenged is unlikely to gain you much traction here, either. —Scheinwerfermann (talk) 03:31, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unless anyone requests otherwise, I am withdrawing my intention to provide an opinion because I consider this discussion closed.
—Latiligence (talk) 12:54, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article states

ASCII and EBCDIC and similar early character encodings provide only a single space, which is breaking and fixed-width (the particular width specified by each particular output font).

However, the EBCDIC article lists 40 as a space and 41 as a no-break space. Which article is right? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.205.54.39 (talk) 16:20, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The EBCDIC article is correct (determined after a fair bit of digging). It turns out EBCDIC also provided a third, alternate-width, space, intended as a "blank digit" in numeric lists (following the same reasoning as modern font recommendations asking designers to make their digits a fixed width for ease of aligning lists of numbers). I have corrected this article accordingly. I also improved the EBCDIC article with the extra info I found, along with the best of the references I found — it previously provided no link to a full EBCDIC specification.

You appear, by the way, to have found one of the reasons why old hands would claim (rather mystifyingly to me, 20 years ago) that EBCDIC was in many ways superior to ASCII, for all its programmer-usability faults. Saltation (talk) 21:09, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article states that reference 43/69 ("Unspaced Text Interferes with Both Word Identification and Eye Movement Control") shows that wider spaces between sentences improves readability. However, this paper only deals with inter-word spacing, not inter-sentence spacing. Thus, the reference is not applicable and should be removed or replaced.

Do any of the references for the Readability section pertain to inter-sentence spacing? I don't have access to them all, but it looks like most of them say "spacing is good" rather than "more inter-sentence spacing is good". The section seems to imply that more inter-sentence spacing is better, but I do not find the references to support this conclusion. 68.41.141.63 (talk) 06:27, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have just placed an {{Essay_entry}} template and, though I don't quite have enough knowledge to rewrite this, I would encourage others to have a look. The biggest problem is that the editorial voice if too strong. It presents all sorts of arguments in favour of double spacing at the ends of sentences, it contains small asides and opinions and, on the whole, builds up an argument in favour double-spacing at the ends of sentences. The hundred and fifteen footnotes look impressive but the author has a habit of using them to support trivial assertions (the defintion of the term "long dash" for example) but not bothering with things that support his thesis.

The editor's central argument is that, until the invention of the typewriter, everyone was double spacing at the end of sentences: "The single-width space is a relatively recent invention, dating from the invention of the typewriter". He doesn't provide any sort of source for this. The frequently repeated claim that the main reason for the switch was economic is supported by a single footnote in a book that I admit I haven't read. These statements may be true, to an extent, but they are over-emphasised. My problem with the first claim, apart from the lack of a source, is that I simply don't believe it. Looking through my modest collection of French books, dating from the 1760s to the twenty-first century, nearly all of them seem to single-space at the ends of sentences. The only exception I can find dates from the 1980s. My objection to the second is that, given the amount of evidence that is provided to support some rather trivial assertions, I can't help being suspicious about the sparcity of sources for that make the claim about cost and I think it is given undue weight (notice, the author provides examples of twelve different studies related to readability, none of which seem to mention double spacing). I also notice that some of these sources seem to have been inaccurately summarised. This [6] makes no mention of French spacing, for example. Worse still, it's full of opinionated, editorialising original research: "As another example, the internet-supported but peculiarly worded explanation... is remarkable for not being repeated by, nor affirmed by, anyone claiming to have actually worked on Linotype machines as a professional printer", "it is very much the exception rather than the norm, but worth noting since it is quite influential." I'm not sure how much can be retrieved but I think this deserves a complete rewrite. --Lo2u ^{(T • C)} 19:27, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've had a go at clearing this article up and made far too many changes to describe separately. There seems to be some confusion about whether this article is about the many rules of typesetting, the conventions used by the French or about double spacing. The aricle can't be about all three subjects and typesetting is dealt with elsewhere. Originally this article was about double spacing and there seems to be a lot of irrelevance. I've removed lots of POV (the practice of using the word "landmark" with every mention of Latex); I've cut it down to the bits that are relevant, aand I've normalised things that seemed to be weird for the sake of showing-off or just showing-off ("the typists' typewriters' approximation", "English spacing approximation was retained in higher quality printing, contemporaneous with single-spaced printings", "the argument here is that" "a non-trivial proportion of respondents") --Lo2u ^{(T • C)}

Just a heads-up. I believe it was in your cleanup edit that the block quotation at the end of the Terminology section was removed. The sentence leading into the quotation ("An American publishing consultant...") remains. I suppose either this sentence should be removed, or the quotation should be restored. The point about the different meaning of "French spacing" within French typography does seem relevant, so I'd lean toward restoring the quotation, or replacing it with something else making a similar point, but I just happened across the article today and am certainly no expert. Jefromi (talk) 14:23, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for letting me know. Originally I attempted to remove it but I mistakenly left in the phrase "emphasis added". It seemed a little unnecessary to have the quote if the article was to be renamed. But I agree, the term French spacing needs proper explanation and this quote is helpful. I've just restored it (though I don't actually find the former emphasis very helpful). --Lo2u ^{(T • C)} 03:11, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This article's title lacks a hyphen. It should be Double-spaced sentences. Anyone? Ericoides (talk) 18:43, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In the absence of a consensus, I have made the change myself. Ericoides (talk) 08:44, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why is this entry so long. There is no conceivable reason why there needs to be a section explaining how different programs treat spacing. Very well researched article, but sometimes there is a point where there's just too much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.128.9.152 (talk) 21:15, 1 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I find "it makes me feel physically sick" puerile. It's certainly not a valid argument against double spacing. I also don't believe this quotation is verifiable in the normal sense. The quote started life as "Nevertheless, double spacing is frowned upon in many scholarly circles, most notably by renowned typographer, Ben Worrall, who purportedly becomes physically sick at the mere sight of double spacing at the end of sentences." Pure hearsay and silliness. This paragraph has now been modified with the quasi-scholarly footnote "Worrall, B. (2009) Modern Typography Conference, Brisbane, Australia" but it's still the same unverifiable quote presumably overheard by this editor rather than being published anywhere. The quote doesn't seem to appear in any Proceedings publications. I can't even verify that the conference took place as Google searches [7][8] seem to turn up nothing. The same is true of a Scholar search for publications by Worrall, about whom I can find nothing of any relevance.[9] The quote is impossible to verify and the citation does not reference any published work. I also object to the PEACOCK term "renowned". --Lo2u ^{(T • C)} 16:00, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This article, while well-referenced and in exhaustive detail - is poorly organized and difficult to navigate for the average user.

Consider that the article is most likely to be visited by someone that was told that "two spaces is no longer used at the end of a sentence," and wants to find out if that is true or not. Of course, this visitor could be Australian, British, etc., but is most likely to be an American. Recent visitors include myself and a relative - exactly for this purpose.

Before I visited this site, I referenced the major manuals of style. I then consulted with the thesis office at a nearby university (who deals with almost every U.S. writing style) and asked if any U.S. writing style prescribed the use of two spaces. The answer was, although some permit the use of double spaces, "no." I began referencing international writing style guides before I decided that no further research was needed. The case was clear enough.

However, I then found this Wikipedia article, which offers a lot of historical (and confusing "French style" information) background and generally didn't get to the point I was looking for. The information is presented in such as way as to make the reader believe that there is no answer.

Why not format the article to retain the exhaustive data that could reasonably be retained in an encyclopedia like Wikipedia, while also placing the information that the average visitor wants to see at the top of the article and top of relevant sections?

Here are some problems with the article that relate to this issue:

1. In "General Preferences," the following statement "Some authors believe that text using double-spaces between sentences is more readable than text written with only one space after the period" is cited by at least one reference (the 1959 government style guide) that has been superceded by a newer manual that says the opposite.

2. There is no statement in "general preferences" or in the lead paragraph or in the overview that states the consensus among writing styles now. This is the key data point that most of the article's visitors are looking for.

3. To support that statement, this article could list all, or most of the major style guides used in the U.S. at a minimum. The Oxford Manual of Style should also be added.

4. The Elements of Style has been criticized, and with good reason, but is a manual widely used and recognized in the U.S. Why not list that one?

5. "Style guides" leads with the "French Style." Why lead with the "French Style" in an English Wikipedia article? Especially when it says what the English manuals say?

6. The next paragraph in "Style Guide" which is (currently) the place that a synthesis of the style guides should be - omits the most important point to the average visitor: the fact that "english" style guides (and probably most international guides) indicate that a single space is proper or preferred!

I applaud the erudite writers that added the incredible detail in this article.

Now, let's make it a useful page for the average visitor by addressing the purpose of her/his visit to this page. Airborne84 (talk) 03:32, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]