Talk:Sentence spacing/Archive 2

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EBCDIC article conflict

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)

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)

Readability references

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)

The tone of this article

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 [1] 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)

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)

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)

Article title

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

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

It seems someone reverted that, but "Double-spaced sentences" is too ambiguous anyway. Airborne84 (talk) 14:40, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

5500 Words

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)

Move?

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was moved to Double spacing at the end of sentences. —harej (T) 07:19, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

---

Double-spaced sentences → Double spacing —

• Double-spaced sentences → Double spacing — According to Wikipedia naming conventions, plural is inappropriate and the gerund is more acceptable. Also, double spacing does not apply solely to sentences; sentence fragments and lists may also be double-spaced. — Neelix (talk) 00:03, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
• But this article seems tro be only about double spaces at ends of sentences. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 05:46, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

  Yes, of course. My mistake. The current title is still inappropriate for three reasons: 1) it employs the plural unnecessarily, 2) it was moved to the current title without discussion when prior discussion had settled on French spacing as the most appropriate title, and 3) the current title suggests that the article is about sentences which have been double-spaced, when in fact the article is about the double-spacing of sentences. French spacing is a good option as we try to aim for the most common name for articles. "Double spacing after a full stop" might also be considered. Neelix (talk) 12:55, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

  The article states: "English spacing removed spaces around most punctuation marks, but double-spaced after sentences, colons, and semicolons.<ref name="Nelson, Julius 1949">Nelson, Julius (1949) ''Stylebook for Typists'' New York: Gregg Publishing Company</ref>"... ?
  — V = I * R (talk) 23:44, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

• Propose "Double spacing at the end of sentences". It's a tad wordy, but it avoids confusion with double (line) spacing and the inconsistency over whether it's French or English. --Cybercobra (talk) 21:58, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

  "Sentence spacing in typography"?
  — V = I * R (talk) 23:45, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

• I like Cybercobra's suggestion; "Double spacing at the end of sentences" is a much more appropriate title than the current one. I don't think "sentence spacing in typography" works because "sentence spacing" is not a commonly accepted term. It is also ambiguous. Although this article deals with double spacing after colons and semicolons as well as after periods, exclamation marks, and question marks, full sentences always precede colons and semicolons in grammatical English works. It is therefore appropriate to have "at the end of sentences" in the title of the article. Neelix (talk) 00:16, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

"It makes me feel physically sick"

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 [2][3] 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.[4] 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)

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