Re: should . be followed by doublespace?

[Gary Turner <kk5st@swbell.net>]

On Wed, 07 Aug 2002 11:01:34 -0700, Craig Dickson wrote:

>Colin Watson wrote:
<snip>
>My personal usage tends to place punctuation inside our outside quotes
>depending on whether it seems to belong. The Jargon File quote you gave:
>
>    To delete a line in vi, type "dd".
>
>was a good example of when to place punctuation outside quotes, because
>it would be confusing to put it inside, and the punctuation isn't
>logically part of the quoted material. On the other hand, in a sentence
>like this:
>
>    John said, "I don't speak French."
>
>John has stated a complete sentence, and the concluding period, though
>unspoken, is logically part of that sentence, and so I place it inside
>the quotes.
>
>Of course, this gets slightly ugly if John's complete sentence isn't
>actually the end of the sentence as written, as in:
>
>   "I don't speak French," said John.
>
>Here, John's sentence really ought to end with a period, but it ends
>with a comma because unquoted material follows in the same written
>sentence. Unfortunately, there's no really good way out of this one; the
>obvious alternative
>
>   "I don't speak French.", said John.
>
>is hideous.
>
>Always placing the period outside the quotes actually would clean this up
>a bit:
>
>   John said, "I don't speak French".
>   "I don't speak French", said John.
>
>This is consistent, but not traditionally considered correct. Natural
>languages, sadly, are not generally exemplars of clean and elegant
>design. Punctuation is the least of most languages' problems in this
>regard; irregular verbs are much nastier.

Craig's and Colin's comments are well thought out and well expressed.
>From _The Elements of Style_ (Strunk & White):

	Typographical usage dictates that the comma be inside the
	marks, though logically it often seems not to belong there.

It is hard to break long-time habits, but I think I will start using the
more logical approach to punctuation (where demanded) rather than the
purely pedantic usage.

In regard to the original subject, I greatly favor the double space
between sentences.  Combined with the ".", "?", "!", or ":", it helps to
open the text visually and to enhance the clues for inflection and
rhythm while reading.  Helpful with mono-spaced type, I find it
virtually required with proportional spacing.  Just as an indentation or
a blank line separates paragraphs, the double space gives separation to
sentences.
--
gt                  kk5st@swbell.net
 If someone tells you---
 "I have a sense of humor, but that's not funny." 
 ---they don't.