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Microsoft Word now flags double spaces after a period as errors

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Re: Microsoft Word now flags double spaces after a period as errors

#51

Post by jlokier »

copperx wrote: post #31
avalys wrote: post #11

Argh! It’s not my fault, I was brainwashed as a child. I try to keep it down to just one space but I can’t help myself. I’m the victim here!

Do you also press space twice after a period in Java-ish languages?

Personally, in comments I do that yes.

I think the end of sentence space looks much better with two than one in monospace font, but I'm not especially bothered either way. When there is one space, it looks more like an abbreviation.

I'm mindful that if I do that in shared code, some people will decide I'm incompetent, old or something worse (instead of reading the actual code; people can be petty), so I'll modify my writing style to please others.

This HN comment has double spaces after the end of a sentence. Not that you can see it.

I think it's a shame HTML ruined the possibility of typographically pleasing sentence spacing that looks distinct from abbreviations. Way back, I used to add wider end of sentence spaces in HTML when running it through generators (like Markdown to HTML).

Re: Microsoft Word now flags double spaces after a period as errors

#53

Post by jlokier »

brokensegue wrote: post #49
peterkelly wrote: post #42

The whole debate over one space vs. two is just stupid. TeX got it right 40 years ago, recognising that it's no longer necessary to constrain ourselves to a integral number of space characters (a holdover from the typewriter era), but instead to use what it calls "glue" as separators between characters, words, and sentences. Glue between words is given a higher weighting than that between characters. Glue between sen…

So I think it doesn't quite miss the point. the point is that you want one ASCII space after a period and then you want the layout algorithm to do something intelligent (like make it as wide as two spaces or 1.5 spaces). This is why "1 space" is correct and two spaces conflates different layers of document creation (the textual information to display and how it is laid out).

I think two spaces makes more sense as an input mechanism, although the ship has sailed so it's no longer possible.

That way the document generator can tell the difference between periods that are inside sentences, and those which end sentences.

When using one space everywhere in the input, the document generator has to guess, and will sometimes guess wrong.

That's why HTML doesn't, and can't, do that kind of intelligent layout. End of sentence wide spaces in the middle of sentences looks awful.

Re: Microsoft Word now flags double spaces after a period as errors

#54

Post by kjcharles »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #21
basicallydan wrote: post #10

This may not seem like a big deal, but consider the effect that such an influential source of “correctness” can have on the general sense of what is correct. Spell checkers like Word’s are responsible for the “z” in British English being demonised. Once upon a time, according to linguist Gretchen McCullen, it was common in British English to use both z and s. But somewhere along the line, automated spell checkers cat…

I don't think that's right, or at least maybe not for the colonies. I grew up in New Zealand and my mother was very insistent that I spelled and spoke "Proper English", rather than American English. This was before Microsoft Word was popular and the source of truth for the English language, especially for my tech-illiterate mother. She also didn't like me using slang, especially the Kiwi tendency to say "sweet as" an…

I think it is a colonial hangover.

It's the same in former British colonies in the Caribbean. We're thought "Proper English" in school and the American spellings are considered wrong. Local dialects are frowned upon in professional settings and writing.

Re: Microsoft Word now flags double spaces after a period as errors

#55

Post by brokensegue »

jlokier wrote: post #53
brokensegue wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I think it doesn't quite miss the point. the point is that you want one ASCII space after a period and then you want the layout algorithm to do something intelligent (like make it as wide as two spaces or 1.5 spaces). This is why "1 space" is correct and two spaces conflates different layers of document creation (the textual information to display and how it is laid out).

I think two spaces makes more sense as an input mechanism, although the ship has sailed so it's no longer possible. That way the document generator can tell the difference between periods that are inside sentences, and those which end sentences. When using one space everywhere in the input, the document generator has to guess, and will sometimes guess wrong. That's why HTML doesn't, and can't, do that kind of intelli…

I mean arguably then we would want a totally different character for end of sentence and not two spaces in a row. I think modern tools are smart enough to properly space "Mr. Foo" v."I was sad. John was happy." and if not you can always manually fix the spacing edge cases yourself without modifying the text.

Re: Microsoft Word now flags double spaces after a period as errors

#56

Post by [deleted] »

brandmeyer wrote: post #12
CamperBob2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The practice originally came from typesetting. If anything, it's more relevant and appropriate now than it was in the days when your font choices were limited to 12-point Pica and Elite.

Programs that do typesetting for you (Markdown, LaTeX), will ignore the number of spaces after the period in your "source" code and lay it out in the output with a single space. I've gotten in the habit of single-space in variable-width fonts, and double-space in fixed-width fonts.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft Word now flags double spaces after a period as errors

#57

Post by svat »

peterkelly wrote: post #42

The whole debate over one space vs. two is just stupid. TeX got it right 40 years ago, recognising that it's no longer necessary to constrain ourselves to a integral number of space characters (a holdover from the typewriter era), but instead to use what it calls "glue" as separators between characters, words, and sentences. Glue between words is given a higher weighting than that between characters. Glue between sen…

Minor quibble: having a non-integral “number” of spaces was not a TeX innovation; Knuth was just reproducing standard practice of fine typography. Using variable-width separators (TeX “glue”) is exactly how human typesetters did it for centuries. So it's not quite the right perspective to consider anything “a holdover from the typewriter era”, because that had never been typographical practice in the first place — in fact the typewriter practice approximated fine typography (rounding up the larger inter-sentence space to 2), rather than the other way around (see my top-level comment below/above).

In fact, with TeX's standard settings, the inter-sentence space has the same natural width as the inter-word space; it's just that when justifying paragraphs it stretches more (3x) and shrinks less (0.33x) than the inter-word space — the net effect is that inter-sentence spaces are (usually) subtly larger.

Re: Microsoft Word now flags double spaces after a period as errors

#58

Post by usr1106 »

wirrbel wrote: post #40
usr1106 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even on typewriters double spaces has been an English thing. In German it has never existed. And I have never noticed that it would have been difficult in reading typewritten German text because one wouldn't see where the sentences end. But then some English speakers might joke that in German you note the end of the sentence by finally hitting the last verb. French punctuation looks weird to me, because they do requi…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:German_text_example_-_Em_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Example_of_french-spaced_...

Quoting from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sentence_spacing

> French typists used a single space between sentences, consistent with the typeset French spacing technique, whereas English typists used a double space.

Edit: add full reference

Re: Microsoft Word now flags double spaces after a period as errors

#59

Post by JdeBP »

funnybeam wrote: post #43
basicallydan wrote: post #10

This may not seem like a big deal, but consider the effect that such an influential source of “correctness” can have on the general sense of what is correct. Spell checkers like Word’s are responsible for the “z” in British English being demonised. Once upon a time, according to linguist Gretchen McCullen, it was common in British English to use both z and s. But somewhere along the line, automated spell checkers cat…

As a native U.K. person that went to school in the seventies (ie long before spell checkers), I can assure you that British English used S rather than Z in the kind of words you are talking about.

Part of the point being made was that British English did not. People put about the myth that this was a British/American thing, when it really was not. It's a French/Greek thing. British English incorporates both.

Re: Microsoft Word now flags double spaces after a period as errors

#60

Post by jlokier »

I found these two thoughtful Wikipedia articles give an interesting background. I didn't know Vi and Emacs used to recognise double spacing as an end-of-sentence navigation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_spacing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_spacing_in_digital_me...

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