Talk:Space (punctuation)

message: Why was the character table removed from the article?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.215.2.185 (talk) 15:12, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The whole "Spaces in Unicode" section was moved to Whitespace character. — Gwalla | Talk 18:20, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Where is the table

message: I have encountered a problem with non-breaking spaces at the Wikipedia Manual of Style. See here for a presentation of the difficulty, and a kludge solution. Has anyone got a better solution? Please post any suggestions at that location. – Noetica 02:10, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for help 

message: I converted the "See also" section to a list to comply with Wikipedia:Guide_to_layout#See_also, and to remove redundant information that was accessible from other articles.  This has since been reverted.  Informational content should go in the article body, not the "See also" section. -- Beland 02:15, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  See also section 

message: What is the Unicode name for the space character that is created by the tab key on Microsoft Word 2007? Here is the character between parentheses: (	). (It is about twice as long in Word.) Lord Wikipedian of the Wiki (talk) 02:33, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  (untitled) 

message: [ Here], half of the HTML versions of spaces were deleted. Why? I used them frequently and found them useful. —C Teng(talk) 21:23, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  HTML gone? 

message: If I recall aright, Unicode does not classify U+200C Zero Width Non Joiner and U+200D Zero Width Joiner as whitespace in the sense used by ECMAScript 5th Edition.  Perhaps their non-space character needs to be indicated.
Please include all valid HTML versions similar to  .
82.163.24.100 (talk) 10:24, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Joiners 

message: * Double space (English Spacing). This convention stems from the use of the monospaced font on typewriters.  [...] Some sources, however, dispute this—stating that the fixed-width nature of typewriter output was the reason for using two or more spaces between sentences.
Perhaps this could be worded more clearly. —Tamfang (talk) 19:52, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the basic fact checking. I that agree "Double space... stems from the use of the monospaced font on typewriters. This historical convention was carried on by tradition until it was replaced by the single space convention in published print and digital media today" gives a strong and incorrect impression that sentence spacing originated with typewriters.  I'll try to fix the text using your phraseology.  A blog on Slate is not a RS on history, particularly if you can find someone else who has actually read previous editions of typographic style guides.  If anyone wants to revert please re-add dispute template. --Cedderstk 03:27, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Looking at it again, the version quoted by Tamfang was indeed a contrast between two accounts that are both ambiguous and seem to be the same as each other.  The real question is whether to use word spacing between sentences or whether to put more; the level of control of extra spacing is dependent on the medium.  Perhaps the list of "conventions" should be restructured in chronological order, that, first typographic extra sentence spacing, then approximations on typewritten MSS which gave rise to the very common rule of two spaces (see eg internet users' experience at http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=651201), and then the single spacing rule from the mid-20th century.  The History of sentence spacing article is a reasonable stab at explaining this.  --Cedderstk 04:34, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where's the dispute? 

message: In the German typographic system of Blackletter or Fraktur, italics and boldface were not available to emphasize a word, so spaces were employed between letters. This was occasionally done in English as well, though it apparently died out in the twentieth century. The most immediate example is from the first chapter (seventh paragraph ; paging varies edition to edition) of Charles Dickens's Bleak House, in which a sign beginning J A R N D Y C E is mentioned. I think this usage should be given on this page, though it is only of historical interest. 4.154.252.212 (talk) 11:32, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: A link to Letter-spacing should suffice. —Tamfang (talk) 04:01, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Former Use of the Space for Emphasis 

message: In the table about 40% down the article, "Space characters defined in Unicode", there's a column "URL". I assume this means "will this get an underline when the text is underlined", but I don't KNOW... perhaps if someone does, they could create a pop-up with explanation?
Tkbwik (talk) 10:26, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: That URL column annoys me. Judging by the footnote for most of the “no” entries I guess it means something like “is the space character allowed in a URL?”. But that’s just a guess. I wonder if such a column really belongs in the table at all, because URLs are not directly related to Unicode. Surely Unicode spaces are applied in many other fields as well as URLs. Maybe the footnote could just be converted to an ordinary paragraph or something. Vadmium (talk) 13:18, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarify table heading? 

message: Thin spaces are sometimes used between numerals and the following units, and as of today (2013-02-27) they are mentioned in this article. There is a line under the heading "Spaces and unit symbols" that reads "The International System of Units, or SI,[19] and the style guide on the English-language Wikipedia[20] recommend a (non-breakable, thin) space only between a number and the unit. ..."
I had a look in reference [19] The International System of Units (SI) (8 ed.). International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM). 2006. p. 133. On page 133, section 5.3.3, it reads "The numerical value always precedes the unit, and a space is always used to separate the unit from the number. ..." As far as I can see, thin spaces are not mentioned. Looking at actual examples in the same reference, it does not look to me as if thin spaces are used in the pfd document itself either (see the examples in the margin on page 130, section 5.1).
I know that thin spaces are implemented for example by the siunitx package to write SI units in LaTeX, but I have been unsuccessful in finding a style reference that says that it is the proper way of writing. Does anyone know of such a reference, or have I missed something in the references that are already on the Article page (mentioned above)?
If anyone is aware of a reference for this, I think it would be good if that could be added to the article.
Hjb981 (talk) 16:23, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reference for thin space between numerals and units 

message: According to one book:
:The separation of words (and thus silent reading) originated in manuscripts copied by Irish scribes in the seventh and eighth centuries but spread to the European continent only in the late tenth century when scholars first attempted to master a newly recovered corpus of technical, philosophical, and scientific classical texts. {Paul Saenger}
:: But in the article it says 800 from Latin. Which one is it. --Inayity (talk) 11:57, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  History not Clear 

message: I started a discussion in the Decimal mark talk page, because I doubt Unicode Thin Space is recommended by anybody (or is appropriate) as a thousands separator, and hence I wonder which character should be used. Please discuss there if you deem appropriate (so that discussions are centralized).--OlivierMiR (talk) 12:59, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recommended character for thousands separator? 

message: Hi, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-space_%28punctuation%29 redirects here, but there is no mention of it. Still I found out what it means https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-space predictably "Half-space (punctuation), a spacing character half the width of a regular space". Since it's not mentioned in *this* page I thought it might have been refactored but can't find out where (elsewhere) it is mentioned. Maybe something like "spaces can come in various withs such as half with (sometimes used instead of thousands commas)" could be added here (or elsewhere). I think it might be reduntant here since it might be (or should be in another place). I thought this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_%28computer_science%29 might be it but it doesn't say what is the half-space. Could someone add it in (the right place) and if not here change the redirect?). Possible refs:
http://help.wugnet.com/office/Half-spacing-numbers-ftopict1169137.html
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/developers/fdsspec/spaces.htm
http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/text.html#propdef-word-spacing
comp.arch (talk) 11:22, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: That should redirect to Whitespace character, fixed. -- Beland (talk) 06:25, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Half space 

message: This whole section is largely incorrect and needs to be rewritten.  Here, roughly is a better idea of what should go there.  It'd take me some time to correctly reference all of it.
Early blackletter printing used inconsistent spacing between sentences.  In the process of justification, space between sentences was often wider than word spaces, but not always (again depending on justification needs.  Additionally, it was common practice to space both before and after punctuation.  And during this time, Many texts used exaggerated "initials" (captialized letters used at the beginning of sentences), which had the effect of highlighting sentence structure.  Hand illuminated texts often added color to the initial captial of every sentence.
As roman fonts were developed in the 17th century, English language printers gradually standardized on wider sentence spacing, generally using an em quadrat, which is three to four times wider than word spaces, depending on the particular font (fount back then) and on justification needs.  At the same time though, the thin space before the period fell out of favor, although it remained in use before colons and commas.  This very wide sentence spacing was nearly ubiquitous (in English language texts) until the early 20th century.
Not all countries adhered to the same standard.  France in particular used much narrower sentence spacing during this same period.  Most texts used the same space between sentences and words, while some used added a thin space or at most an en quad between sentences.  Again though, this would vary depending on justification needs.
When the typewriter was invented in 1873, typists automatically adopted the habit of using two spaces between sentences to emulate the wider spacing that was used.
In 1884 the Linotype was invented and revolutionized printing.  This machine used a spacing element called a spaceband that would grow wider to provide automatic justification.  The common recommendation when the Linotype was new was to use a spaceband, plus an en quad between sentences.  This roughly approximated the wide spacing provided by the em quad in traditional typesetting.  However over time the industry came to prefer narrower fonts and spacebands, which resulted in decreased sentence spacing compared to older text.  Around the 1920s and 30s, it became more and more common to use the thin space instead of the en quad together with the spaceband. Sentence spacing remained wider, but was definitely on a diet.  During this time, a minority of printers began questioning the practice of wide
sentence spacing altogether, going so far as to call it a "mistake" (more or less out of the blue as far as I can tell, with the Linotype company itself leading the charge).  By 1950 most printers had abandoned wide sentence spacing, and used the same spaces for sentences and for words.
Typists habits however had not changed, and two spaces continued to be taught and practiced all the way into the computer era.  Only recently has there been a rash of articles arguing that this too is wrong.
So I'm not sure where that whole "Double space" section came from.  Or that section on one wider space.  Before typewriters all spacing would be considered one space of some amount of width even if multiple elements were needed to create that space.  And also as noted on other wikipedia pages the terms  "french spacing" and "english spacing" have flip-flopped meaning at some point, rendering them hopelessly confusing terms.  Likewise "double spacing" is a problematic term first because only on the typewriter was it ever actually double, and because historically on the typewriter "double spacing" refers to the practice of adding blank LINES between each typed line.
Basically this section needs to look more like this, but with proper referencing, and with some of my opinions removed. Battling McGook (talk) 17:51, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The section can certainly be improved. For references, try Sentence spacing. Side note: I don't think spacing before periods is applicable to sentence spacing, which would center on spaces after Terminal punctuation. No issue with the rest though. Thanks for your interest. Airborne84 (talk) 20:49, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: By the way, I don't have an issue with the edits you made in a general sense, but that sentence was heavily sourced; did you check the references to see if they say what you state they say? Airborne84 (talk) 20:55, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sentence Spacing 

message: I like to strikethrough to mark incorrect usage;  seems to prefer the opposite: . I'm opening this discussion to try and reach a wider consensus. fgnievinski (talk) 16:04, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Strikethrough 

message: The space count list says "young people ... are now accustomed to following a full stop with a lower-case letter and no space". However this is not accurate as leaving out a space after a full stop is always interpreted as being a mistake (see: the entire internet). Agree with the  "undue" tag.  Nixinova   T   C   05:54, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  No space 

message: I saw that Snorlax just removed the undue weight reference from Truss's 2003 book. I do find 2003 quite dated, where we used to SMS on T9 keyboards and dial up to Internet chatrooms. Was IRC around? 
Now, words without spaces between are most seen at #hashtags, meanwhile excessive space between every letter is seen at at v a p o r a a v e, or sometimes used as a m a r k d o w n. Like a reverse of markup.
Days ago I happened to come across the Truss-David Crystal spat about the use of English. David Crystal is a linguist expert at that time. I did not follow through on their points of disagreement. 
I seldom comment here but wanted to share what I have this time.119.56.103.18 (talk) 13:48, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Undue