Re: Sentence-end punctuation

[Michael Piotrowski]

address@hidden (Greg A. Woods) writes:

> [ On Friday, August 31, 2001 at 17:46:45 (+0200), Michael Piotrowski wrote: ]
> > Subject: Sentence-end punctuation
>> 
>> I just noticed that for all languages except French, langdefs contains
>> the same sentence-end definitions as for English.  When using
>> TeX-style spacing, this means that a larger space is automatically
>> used after:
>> 
>>    . : ! ? .) ?) !) .' !' ?'
>
> This is partially true for troff-style spacing too, at least if you
> follow the unwritten guideline that an end of line always follow a
> sentence ending in troff input.

I mentioned TeX-style spacing because that's what I'm normally using,
both for hand-written and generated Lout.

>> However, is this behavior really appropriate for these languages?  I'm
>> only sure about German, and for German it should be the same as for
>> French.  What about the other languages supported by Lout?  Since
>> changing the language definitions on a per-user basis requires copying
>> the setup file, I think it would be good if the defaults were correct.
>
> I didn't really think there was any difference between the "Romanesque"
> languages for the typeset _output_, but if you say so....  :-)

Well, there are many subtle differences in typesetting customs between
the many languages that use the Latin alphabet, although, under the
influence of American-written word processors, many of them will
probably disappear.

> In that vein though it's important to note that many guides to
> preparation of electronic manuscripts (at least all the ones I've ever
> read) have always recommended leaving two spaces after punctuation that
> ends sentences.

This is exactly my point: As far as I know, this usage is something
very specific to the English language (or its American variant?).  You
wouldn't do this in German.

-- 
Michael Piotrowski, M.A.                                  <address@hidden>