Correct English Grammar Question...

[Asht_200]

I'm having a debate with an American journalist from Thomson Reuters... basically the debate relates to the following.

2 written sentences.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Why did he jump over it?
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Why did he jump over it?

Do you notice the difference? The second line has 2 spaces after the full stop.

Which is the PROPER way of writing 2 sentences?

I say 1, he says it must have 2.

[Dunkz]

I would have to go with 1. Can't give a reason why but I don't recall ever being taught there should be 2.

[Asht_200]

Well blow me, we are both right.

Sentence spacing is the horizontal space between sentences in typeset text. It is a matter of typographical convention.[1] Since the introduction of movable-type printing in Europe, various sentence spacing conventions have been used in languages with a Latin-derived alphabet.[2] These include a normal word space (as between the words in a sentence), a single enlarged space, two full spaces, and, most recently in digital media, no space.[3] Although modern digital fonts can automatically adjust a single word space to create visually pleasing and consistent spacing following terminal punctuation,[4] most debate is about whether to strike a keyboard's spacebar once or twice between sentences.[5]

Until the 20th century, publishing houses and printers in many countries used single, but enlarged, spaces between sentences.[6] There were exceptions to this traditional spacing method—printers in some countries preferred single spacing.[7] This was French spacing—a term synonymous with single space sentence spacing until the late 20th century.[8] Double spacing,[9] or placing two spaces between sentences (sometimes referred to as English spacing), came into widespread use with the introduction of the typewriter in the late 19th century.[10] It was felt that with the monospaced font used by a typewriter, "a single word space ... was not wide enough to create a sufficient space between sentences"[11] and that extra space might help signal the end of a sentence.[12] This caused a widespread change in practice. From the late 19th century, printers were told to ignore their typesetting manuals in favor of typewriter spacing; Monotype and Linotype operators used double sentence spacing[12] and this was widely taught in typing classes.[13]

With the introduction of proportional fonts in computers, double sentence spacing became obsolete, according to many experts.[14] These proportional fonts now assign appropriate horizontal space to each character (including punctuation marks), and typesetting programs such as TeX[15] can modify kerning values to adjust spaces following terminal punctuation, so there is less need to increase spacing manually between sentences.[11] From around 1950, single sentence spacing became standard in books, magazines and newspapers.[16] Regardless, many still believe that double spaces are correct. The debate continues,[5] notably on the World Wide Web—as many people use search engines to try to find what is correct.[17] Many people prefer double sentence spacing for informal use because that was how they were taught to type.[18] There is a debate on which convention is more readable, but the few recent direct studies conducted since 2002 have produced inconclusive results.[19]

[DLowe]

If you put 2 spaces after in word it comes up as a grammatical error iirc

[Asht_200]

If you put 2 spaces after in word it comes up as a grammatical error iirc

You have a point. The original discussion revolves arounf HTML auto justifying the text because I suspect it treats the additional space as white space, however I may be wrong in my reasoning.

http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html40...ext.html#h-9.1

[docwra]

Two spaces after a full stop, its a style thing. My Mum got taught it at Pitman College, I guess I got it from her but have always done it, even in the days before grammar checkers ......... yep, you read that right kids, we used to have to check our own work

[Asht_200]

Two spaces after a full stop, its a style thing. My Mum got taught it at Pitman College, I guess I got it from her but have always done it, even in the days before grammar checkers ......... yep, you read that right kids, we used to have to check our own work

But that was for the use of typewriters with monospace fonts.

[bren]

I double space.

Talking about spacing, why is there such a gap between text and signatures?

[TheBigShow]

I double space.

Talking about spacing, why is there such a gap between text and signatures?

its for your ego, looks mines massive....

[Cluck]

I only ever use a single space after a full stop and wasn't even aware that people used two spaces .

[Stevecarter200]

I only ever use a single space after a full stop and wasn't even aware that people used two spaces .

Same here, this is the first Ive heard of double spacing. As for this from wikipedia "and that extra space might help signal the end of a sentence", surely thats what a full stop is for?

[Jem]

Two spaces is the correct, some would say old fashioned, way after a full stop. Single space after a comma. The double space makes reading more fluid and easier to differentiate between a full stop and a comma

[dow]

Only ever used one here and that some people use two is news to me.

I see the article mentions TeX... I don't know if anyone has ever used it, but if you had it would make you look at the average output that comes from MS Word as truly disgusting when compared to a typesetting system such as TeX. Seems a shame WYSIWYG has taken over, and people create documents with no idea about typesetting when if they concentrated on the content and let a typesetting system worry about the layout things would be so much prettier.

[Asht_200]

Tis all true. The problem is the HTML standard promotes the removal of Whitespace. So to truly conform to HTML.... it is one space after a full stop.

However, I also appreciate that many people including journo's grew up using the typewriter where the acceptable method was to use 2 spaces due to the monospacing of fonts. Proportional Fonts should alleviate the need for it. So if people have problems reading sentences with only one space at the end.... perhaps it is the fault of the Font that is used???

[Asht_200]

I've just noticed.. In IE, my original post has had the Spaces corrected????

The second line of the example had 2 spaces after the first fullstop... but now appears as one.

[Asht_200]

I've just noticed.. In IE, my original post has had the Spaces corrected????

The second line of the example had 2 spaces after the first fullstop... but now appears as one.

If you click quote on my original post you will see what I mean

[sparkyhx]

I was always taught 2 spaces after a full stop. I must say it makes the break clearer

[Simaroon]

I was always taught 1 space after a comma, 2 after a full stop.

Still do it that way.

[RichP]

I think your American friend would prefer their to be two spaces. More room to get a claim in.

[TrIcK^]

One space only, except if some odd font is used that obscures the spacing.