As a non English speaking person that's very interesting. In Swedish there has never been an extra space required and I started to learn English at school in 1975, and nobody ever mentioned an extra space. So exactly when did this change from being required to NOT being required?
On the other hand, in 1975 we didn't use computers at school so maybe that's why they didn't mention anything about spaces… And I am curious about another thing as well: I have noticed that many people writing in English adds an extra space right before a ”!” and a ”?”, which is very ugly and at least in Swedish very wrong. Has that been required too in the past? Johnny Rosenberg Sweden ≠ Switzerland… 2009/12/5 James Wilde <james.wi...@sunde-wilde.com>: > Sorry to barge in here, but in normal usage you are right, Michael, that two > spaces after a full stop and colon are no longer required. > > However, I have been told that manuscripts intended for printing should still > have two spaces after full stop and colon, to make it easier for the > typesetter to see the difference between full stop and comma, and colon and > semi-colon respectively. For this reason also, it is traditional for > manuscripts to be in a fixed font, and courier 12 pt is the norm, both in the > film world (where it isn't intended for printing of course) and in the book > world. I must admit that, like John Gilchrist, it is so ingrained in my > system, that I automatically put two spaces in the appropriate places, but > then I've been typing for nearly fifty years, so it's had time to become a > habit! > > I'm not saying that J K Rowling wouldn't have been published if she'd sent > her manuscript in Arial or something, but she no doubt found it easier to > stick to the rules. > > //James > > On Dec 5, 2009, at 12:05 , Michael Adams wrote: > >> On Sat, 05 Dec 2009 03:59:59 -0600 >> Came this utterance formulated by John Gilchrist to my mailbox: >> >>> >>> *How can I automatically place two spaces between the period at the >>> end of a sentence, and the begining of the next sentence.* >>> >> >> Firstly - two spaces at the end of each sentence is no longer a >> requirement of English. >> >> But if you insist that it is a requirement of yours, use "Edit - Find >> and Replace" then replace ". " with ". ". It can also be suitably >> ammended to cater for question and exclamation marks. >> >> What i would have done is not copied and pasted but "File - Open"ed the >> .DOC files instead. They will open fine in OpenOffice.org. >> >> NOTE to all - If copy and paste does strip extra white spaces, is this >> behaviour expected or counterable? >> >> -- >> Michael >> >> All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall >> be well >> >> - Julian of Norwich 1342 - 1416 >> >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.org >> For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.org >> > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.org > For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.org > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.org
