Double space between sentences?

C

Chris Beall

I prefer the visual appearance of a double space between sentences. In
HTML, I get this effect by placing each sentence on its own line and
eding it with  , thus:
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 
The new line character following the   provides the second space
before the next sentence starts.

This is, however, a STYLE thing, not CONTENT. In today's world it seems
that I should just be typing the sentences with a single separating
space and then applying an appropriate CSS sytle parameter like
sentence-space: double. I don't see any way to do this in CSS2, nor do
I see it over the horizon in CSS3.

Have I missed something?

Chris Beall
 
M

mike c

Chris Beall said:
This is, however, a STYLE thing, not CONTENT. In today's world it seems
that I should just be typing the sentences with a single separating
space and then applying an appropriate CSS sytle parameter like
sentence-space: double. I don't see any way to do this in CSS2, nor do
I see it over the horizon in CSS3.

I'm not sure if its in CSS3 but it should be! I've always wanted to do the
same thing without resorting to presentational hacks in the HTML like adding
 

Here's something you could try:

p span {margin-right:1em;}
<p><span>First sentence.</span><span>Second sentence.</span></p>

I can't remember off the top of my head if margins can be applied inline
elements or not??

Anyways, its still an ugly solution, and probably no better than just adding
&nbsp...

MikeyC
http://www.zeit.ca/
 
A

Adrienne

I'm not sure if its in CSS3 but it should be! I've always wanted to do
the same thing without resorting to presentational hacks in the HTML
like adding &nbsp;

Here's something you could try:

p span {margin-right:1em;}
<p><span>First sentence.</span><span>Second sentence.</span></p>

I can't remember off the top of my head if margins can be applied
inline elements or not??

Anyways, its still an ugly solution, and probably no better than just
adding &nbsp...

MikeyC
http://www.zeit.ca/

Are you talking about this:
the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back.
the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back.
the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back.

As opposed to this?
the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back.

the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back.

the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back.

If so, line-height is the way to go:

p {line-height:1.5em} - play with the value
 
D

Disco

Chris said:
I prefer the visual appearance of a double space between sentences.
In HTML, I get this effect by placing each sentence on its own line
and eding it with &nbsp;, thus:
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.&nbsp;
The new line character following the &nbsp; provides the second space
before the next sentence starts.

This is, however, a STYLE thing, not CONTENT. In today's world it
seems that I should just be typing the sentences with a single
separating space and then applying an appropriate CSS sytle parameter
like sentence-space: double. I don't see any way to do this in CSS2,
nor do I see it over the horizon in CSS3.

Have I missed something?

Chris Beall
Well, I think it would be nice to have a selector that will be something
like the ":before" or ":after" psuedo elements.

So, something like this...... this would replace the "." with something like
". "...


p {char-replacement:"." ". "}
or
p {char-replacement:"." ".&nbsp;.&nbsp;";}

or something that would be reprsentitive of whatever you want... such
as.....
p {char-replacement:"." uri(../images/blah.gif);}

if it could also be made to assign other classes to the character
found...this would also be useful for things such as highlighting 'searched
for' words such as...
p {char-find-replace-with:"elephant" class(highlightcontext)}
..... this would find the word "elephant", and apply the style from the class
"highlightecontext" to it.

maybe? or not?
 
G

Geoff Ball

Adrienne said:
Gazing into my crystal ball I observed "mike c" <[email protected]> writing
in news:[email protected]:
Are you talking about this:
the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back.
the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back.
the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back.

As opposed to this?
the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back.

the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back.

the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back.

If so, line-height is the way to go:

No. They mean putting two spaces after a period, like your elementary
teachers probably taught you as you were learning how to print.

ie.

I like cake. It tastes good. Cheesecake is my favourite.
vs.
I like cake. It tastes good. Cheesecake is my favourite.

Regards,
Geoff
 
M

mike c

No. They mean putting two spaces after a period, like your elementary
teachers probably taught you as you were learning how to print.

While I was taught that in elementary school as well, does anyone have a
definitive answer on whether or not its required syntax for proper grammer?
 
P

PeterMcC

Chris said:
I prefer the visual appearance of a double space between sentences.
In HTML, I get this effect by placing each sentence on its own line
and eding it with &nbsp;, thus:
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.&nbsp;
The new line character following the &nbsp; provides the second space
before the next sentence starts.

This is, however, a STYLE thing, not CONTENT. In today's world it
seems that I should just be typing the sentences with a single
separating space and then applying an appropriate CSS sytle parameter
like sentence-space: double. I don't see any way to do this in CSS2,
nor do I see it over the horizon in CSS3.

Have I missed something?

The threads that have dealt with this previously :)

Have a look on Google groups - this crops up regularly and has resulted in
some lengthy discussions of the more heat than light variety. 36 posts when
it came up in Feb, 64 in July last year, etc... I'm not saying that you
shouldn't raise this again - I'm just mentioning that you'll be lucky to get
away with a simple answer.

You, of course, can set out your documents however you want but, apart from
the convention developed for using fixed space fonts on typewriters
prevalent during the last century, there's a single space after a full stop.
 
C

C A Upsdell

Chris Beall said:
I prefer the visual appearance of a double space between sentences. In
HTML, I get this effect by placing each sentence on its own line and
eding it with &nbsp;, thus:
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.&nbsp;
The new line character following the &nbsp; provides the second space
before the next sentence starts.

This is, however, a STYLE thing, not CONTENT. In today's world it seems
that I should just be typing the sentences with a single separating
space and then applying an appropriate CSS sytle parameter like
sentence-space: double. I don't see any way to do this in CSS2, nor do
I see it over the horizon in CSS3.

Have I missed something?

A single space separating sentences is the standard for proportional fonts.
What you want would be appropriate in some regions for monospace fonts.

I view this as being a browser issue rather than an HTML or CSS issue: the
browser should render text with a sentence gap appropriate to the font and
the user's personal preferences.
 
D

Don McCahill

mike said:
While I was taught that in elementary school as well, does anyone have a
definitive answer on whether or not its required syntax for proper grammer?

I do. It is not proper grammar. It is a typewriter thing. Double spaces
after periods has never been acceptable in fine typography.
 
P

PeterMcC

mike said:
While I was taught that in elementary school as well, does anyone
have a definitive answer on whether or not its required syntax for
proper grammer?

It's neither syntax nor grammar - it was a stylistic convention used for
fixed space fonts on typewriters in the last century.
 
C

Chris Beall

Chris Beall said:
I prefer the visual appearance of a double space between sentences. In
HTML, I get this effect by placing each sentence on its own line and
eding it with &nbsp;, thus:
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.&nbsp;
The new line character following the &nbsp; provides the second space
before the next sentence starts.

This is, however, a STYLE thing, not CONTENT. In today's world it seems
that I should just be typing the sentences with a single separating
space and then applying an appropriate CSS sytle parameter like
sentence-space: double. I don't see any way to do this in CSS2, nor do
I see it over the horizon in CSS3.

Have I missed something?

Chris Beall

OK, what I missed is that (not too surprising) it's been mentioned
before. Concensus seems to be that it is most common for monspaced
fonts, although the specific font that brought this to my attention was
proportional. And it isn't in plan for CSS. They way I'm getting it
seems as good as any.

I got used to this function with a document layout language called
SCRIPT, where it was available, regardless of font. It didn't just work
after periods, but after any of the common sentence-ending characters.
Improved readability, IMO. Oh, well, another wheel that hasn't been
reinvented yet....

Thanks for all the comments.

Chris Beall
 
J

Jerry Muelver

Chris Beall said:
I prefer the visual appearance of a double space between sentences. In
HTML, I get this effect by placing each sentence on its own line and
eding it with &nbsp;, thus:
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.&nbsp;
The new line character following the &nbsp; provides the second space
before the next sentence starts.

This is, however, a STYLE thing, not CONTENT. In today's world it seems
that I should just be typing the sentences with a single separating
space and then applying an appropriate CSS sytle parameter like
sentence-space: double. I don't see any way to do this in CSS2, nor do
I see it over the horizon in CSS3.

Have I missed something?

Chris Beall


Yes. You missed the thread here last year on this topic, in which on 3
July 2002 I replied with a small contextual quote:
The rules of punctuation are clear: Two spaces (or a "long" space) after the
end of a sentence to differentiate it from any other construct which has a
period at the end of a word (i.e. abbreviations), which have only one (or a
"short") space. How else is a person supposed to know when a sentence ending
with an abbreviation and followed by a capitalized word (e.g. a proper name)
has actually ended?

While that argument is silly, it's not the silliest thing in your
reasoning. The points you are missing (deliberately, it seems, since
they have been made adequately clear in this discussion), are:

1. The two-spaces "standard" was deprecated in the 50's with the
advent of electronic typesetting technologies.

2. The two-spaces "standard" is a standard only in the fossilized
minds of academic throw-backs.

3. Those who appeal to authority for support for the two-spaces
"standard" will find nothing whatsoever to enable their attempt to
apply that deprecated, useless, awkward, asinine punctuation mutant to
Web communication. In fact, the HTML standard is to collapse extra
spaces and extra lines.

4. Craving to implement an already-idiotic two-spaces "standard" on
the Web simply because you once-upon-a-time saw it in print media or
learned it in a typing class in the middle of the past century is as
logical as trying to make a flute sound like a piano because you had
piano lessons before learning to play the flute.
Laziness is not an excuse.

Neither is obdurate ignorance.

---- jerry (WikiWriter lives at http://hytext.com/ww)
Georgie Porgie puddin' pie,
Went and told a little lie.
Now his buddies take the blame,
'Cuz Georgie Porgie names the game.
 
C

Chris Beall

Jerry Muelver said:
"Chris Beall" <[email protected]> wrote in message


Yes. You missed the thread here last year on this topic, in which on 3
July 2002 I replied with a small contextual quote:
(snip quote)

which those interested can find by Googling (Muelver punctuation "how
else"). There are 64 posts in the thread, which address the issue
extensively and with, um, enthusiasm. The consensus (aside from the one
that folks who didn't agree were idiots) seemed to be that the two-space
convention was not applicable to the web, hence there was no technical
support for it.

In my case, I tend to use the convention by habit, probably because I
was taught that way in typing class. When I looked at the text (Century
Gothic) on a web page I had created and noticed that the sentences
seemed to run together, I applied the old convention, thus alleviating
the problem. That got me wondering if W3C was doing anything in this
area, hence my initial post.

Again, thanks for all of the enlightenment.

Chris Beall
 
T

Titus A Ducksass

In my case, I tend to use the convention by habit, probably because I
was taught that way in typing class. When I looked at the text (Century
Gothic) on a web page I had created and noticed that the sentences
seemed to run together, I applied the old convention, thus alleviating
the problem. That got me wondering if W3C was doing anything in this
area, hence my initial post.

Again, thanks for all of the enlightenment.

Chris Beall
Someone that speaks with common sense at last!!!
 
C

Chris Beall

Jukka K. Korpela said:
It doesn't really matter whether you have a line break or a space after
the no-break space. Line breaks are generally equivalent to spaces in
HTML.


Yes. But to handle it in CSS as currently defined, you would have to
add quite some markup, e.g. make each sentence a
<span class="sentence">...</span>
and use span.sentence { padding-right: 1ex; } or something like that.

Not that it's likely to happen, but this could be a global formatting
characteristic, just as Font is. Once specified, perhaps tied to <body>
it would be inherited throughout the page.
Sentence-space: single | double
The browser would honor this request by examining the current language
and applying the appropriate criteria for determining end-of-sentence.
No need for the user to <span> each sentence. This would require some
pretty spiffy sentence-detection logic; as I recall, IBM made it easier
by adding the requirement that the sentence end with a New Line, which
is contrary to HTML syntax.

But my fingers can type &nbsp; almost automatically, so it's somewhat
moot.

Chris Beall
 
J

Jukka K. Korpela

Chris Beall said:
Not that it's likely to happen, but this could be a global
formatting characteristic, just as Font is.

It would be _very_ different from font issues.
This would require some pretty spiffy sentence-detection logic;

That's really an understatement. There is no possibility of reliably
detecting sentence boundaries automatically without including some sort
of semantic analysis.
But my fingers can type &nbsp; almost automatically, so it's
somewhat moot.

Another problem with that is that it works. There's no way the user
could disable it, if he seriously dislikes it.
 

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