From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/25290 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Ken McGlothlen Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: highlighting and fontification Date: 24 Sep 1999 17:47:02 -0700 Sender: owner-ding@hpc.uh.edu Message-ID: <87wvtfrf5l.fsf@ralf.serv.net> References: <199909152213.SAA72350@alderaan.gsfc.nasa.gov> Reply-To: mcglk@serv.net NNTP-Posting-Host: coloc-standby.netfonds.no X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1035162702 13204 80.91.224.250 (21 Oct 2002 01:11:42 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 01:11:42 +0000 (UTC) Cc: ding@gnus.org Return-Path: Original-Received: from bart.math.uh.edu (bart.math.uh.edu [129.7.128.48]) by sclp3.sclp.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA05612 for ; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 20:49:05 -0400 (EDT) Original-Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu (lists@Sina.HPC.UH.EDU [129.7.3.5]) by bart.math.uh.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id TAB19563; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 19:49:00 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: by sina.hpc.uh.edu (TLB v0.09a (1.20 tibbs 1996/10/09 22:03:07)); Fri, 24 Sep 1999 19:49:26 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: from sclp3.sclp.com (root@sclp3.sclp.com [204.252.123.139]) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id TAA11663 for ; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 19:49:15 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: from ralf.serv.net (a.serv.net [207.207.72.1]) by sclp3.sclp.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA05605 for ; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 20:47:14 -0400 (EDT) Original-Received: (from mcglk@localhost) by ralf.serv.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id RAA98639; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 17:47:03 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mcglk) Original-To: "Edward J. Sabol" In-Reply-To: "Edward J. Sabol"'s message of "Wed, 15 Sep 1999 18:13:31 -0400 (EDT)" Original-Lines: 33 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.6.45/Emacs 20.3 Precedence: list X-Majordomo: 1.94.jlt7 Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:25290 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general:25290 "Edward J. Sabol" writes: | Personally, I believe that having two spaces at the end of a sentence is an | antiquated convention born in an era of typewriters and fixed-width fonts. | With the advent of computers and proportional spacing, the two-space | convention is virtually useless and people are moving away from it. | Professional typesetting for books, etc. has never followed it to begin with. | Pick up any book, and you won't find the spacing between sentences to be any | larger than the spacing between words. (I realize that I'm answering this kind of late.) I must respectfully disagree. It's there, but it's smaller than two normal spaces between words on the same line. In justified text, it was considered better to expand the space between sentences "faster" than the space between words; in English-style typesetting, uniform spacing was considered "lazy." (Of course, the *French* never followed this convention, but c'est la vie.) Even TeX, possibly the most careful computerized implementation of typesetting known to date, took this into account. In extremely tight lines, by default, the spacing was uniform, but as the line got looser, the space after sentences would stretch three times faster than the space between normal words. TeX, of course, had a \frenchspacing command that would revert to the French style of uniform spacing. But at least in English and often in German, larger spacing after end-of-sentence marks was common, accepted, and considered good style. And that is what led to the two-space convention in typewriting. Obviously, I still prefer it. Call me a traditionalist, I guess. :) ---Ken