Space before ? ! : ;
- From: Dave Fawthrop <invalid@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2006 07:58:18 +0000
I note on usenet that there are two conventions about the positioning of
punctuation ? ! : and ;
The a majority post "is this correct?"
While a significant minority post "is this correct ?"
IMO this must be that this is a carry over from hand writing.
Does anyone here follow the second convention, and if so where and when
were they taught it?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I produce e-books for out of copyright Yorkshire Dialect Books, for Project
Gutenberg who in thier FAQ suggest.
http://www.gutenberg.org/faq/V-104
>>>
The Project Gutenberg FAQ - V-104V.104.
My book leaves a space before punctuation like semicolons, question marks,
exclamation marks and quotes. Should I do the same?
No.
If you look closely at these "spaces", you will see that they are not as
wide as a normal space--they tend to be half to three-quarters as wide.
These don't actually represent spaces as such; they were just a convention
used by typesetters to make the text feel less cramped, and they did not
express any specific intent on the part of the author.
OCR software tends to see them as full spaces, and one of the jobs you
typically have to do when editing a text that has been OCRed is to remove
them.
In some texts, this also happens following an opening quote, so your OCR
might read a sentence as:
" Hello ! How are you to-day ? "
which you should correct to:
"Hello! How are you to-day?"
<<<
Looking at the books I work on the space before these characters is a full
space similar to the space between words, in poetry and so not justified.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Perhaps this as yet another difference between English and American.
--
Dave Fawthrop <dave hyphenologist co uk>
17,000 free e-books at Project Gutenberg! http://www.gutenberg.net
For Yorkshire Dialect go to www.hyphenologist.co.uk/songs/
.
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