Talk:Sentence spacing

Unsourced material

I haven't been to this page in a long time, and probably won't return for a while again, but I moved an unsourced sentence from the lede to here. I'll let other editors determine how, if at all, to reinstate it.

Traditionally, two spaces could distinguish from a mid-sentence abbreviation or initials, as in, "He was faster than I.  P. Jones was next."

One could argue that it's obvious and does not need citation. But I believe it does. First, the sentence "using only one space between sentences shortens the pages required for a lengthy book" is also obvious. But I suggest that would need a citation to determine if a reliable source thinks it is relevant in decisions about sentence spacing. Second, I've seen many people argue for extra space between sentences on blogs using the rationale in the sentence I moved here. But I have not seen a reliable source say that this idea should be considered in sentence spacing. If one can be found, I would support its return to the article, supported by the source. It may be better in another location in that case. Airborne84 (talk) 20:09, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

You can't shake a stick at the subject of automated parsing without coming across this issue. So in modern usage I'd say it's so obvious that it doesn't need to be sourced. But that word "traditionally"... I have searched many 19th century sources, all of which are clear on spacing sentences with an em quad and abbreviations or initials with less than an em quad, but none of them so far say why this was done. I'm inclined to put the quote back, but remove the word "Traditionally". Battling McGook (talk) 22:01, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

It is obvious. But it's not obvious that reliable sources think it should be a consideration regarding this topic. In that sense, I'd like to see what reliable source thinks it's relevant. (We can also say "three spaces could even more clearly distinguish from a mid-sentence abbreviation or initials", but I'd question the relevancy of that as well.) Including the sentence (unsourced) implies that it should be considered. But, if all reliable sources dismiss this by saying it is easier to simply rewrite a rarely occurring confusing sentence than change an English convention (a theme used in other areas as well), why would we include this idea in this form?

I have no problem including it if a reliable source can be found stating its relevancy though. Airborne84 (talk) 20:30, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Controversy section: Narrow in scope?

The Controversy section appears to only deal with single spacing vs. typists, as opposed to the full debate of narrow vs. wide spacing. The arguments "for" wide-spacing therefore consist primarily of 20th-century material rather than taking the wider view of 18th and 19th-century printing practices referenced earlier in the article. If nobody has any objections I could redraft this section to include that material, with the aim of a more balanced discussion. Marinedalek (talk) 06:00, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Not sure what has to be redrafted. Why not just add material on the 18th and 19th century to supplement the current material in that section? Sounds like a good way to improve the article though. Airborne84 (talk) 20:32, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Move Digital age to HIstory?

Currently a good chunk of the Digital age section is just pushing one viewpoint. It opens with an opinion quote, and one that leans heavily on the incorrect typewriter myth. I could just dig in and fix this, but I see a larger issue here, that much of the "digital age" is just about history now. I'd like to add some information on computerized phototypesetting from the sixties and seventies and issues there with sentence spacing, which is obviously history. Troff was originally written in 1976 I think, and it's handling for sentences had changed over time. Even TeX has been around long enough to get coverage in history. The web hasn't been around for long, but long enough to see changes over time in how it handles spacing.

So I'm thinking that either the entire section could be rewritten and moved to History, or that History could be generally expanded, and this section could just be renamed "Modern digital usage" or "current digital practices" or something like that. I would like to have more on current practices, e.g. a recent change to twitter to preserve spaces; what Word does; and the iOS and Android use of two spaces to detect sentences and add periods.

I guess I"m not fully satisfied with any of the options for rearrangement so if anybody has any bright ideas, please let us know. Battling McGook (talk) 21:55, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Identifying Abbreviations

The additional space also helps distinguish abbreviations, especially in names and titles. For example, "Security is a vital concern in the U.S. Marines will defend our nation." If only there was a way to tell the sentence ended after U.S., maybe some kind of standardized spacing. Software is especially sensitive, not knowing whether a sentence just ended or if an abbreviation took place. ~ Agvulpine (talk) 10:51, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Add smartphone shortcut info to Digital Age section?

On most (perhaps all?) modern smartphones, a double-space is the standard shortcut to automatically end a sentence--the software adds a period, spaces, and defaults the first letter of the next word/sentence to be capitalized. While I have no specific source for this, I find it fairly obvious that the reason this was chosen to be the shortcut is because of how much of the population uses doublespaces between sentences. It seems this would be worth covering in the Digital Age section of this entry. Thoughts?