Language and English

From: Hans Franke <Hans.Franke_at_mch20.sbs.de>
Date: Mon Jan 7 10:03:36 2002

> > > > > When I was in the 8th grade, one of the courses we were required
> > > > > to take was in typing. I've never gotten particularly good at
> > > > > it, but I did learn that a period at the end of a sentence is
> > > > > followed by two spaces, for example.
> > > > Thank you very much. So it seams there is a 'school' forcing this in
> > > > the US .... and I always wondered why some people add two spaces after
> > > > a period.

> > > I imagine Hans was taught that it's "wrong", since I imagine
> > > he learned to type in German.

> > there was only two trules
> > about spaces (AFAIR): Three (or one, sinplified) at the beginning
> > of a new paragraph, and one after each punktuation (and none before).
> > We been told about some odd formats for accounting, but I realy don't
> > remember.

> I, too, find it of immense interest. I recall being taught that
> paragraphs were indented 5 spaces. I also remember that this was not
> universal, as there was another variation, called "block style" which was
> not indented at all.

Jep, same here - we been told that for strict business letters there
may be no intended first line at all.

> I have been looking at a number of books, and noticed that some have a
> single space between sentences, others two spaces. This occurrs in both
> US and UK editions. I even noticed a German grammar in blackletter that
> uses the double spaces, although it was US printed. I do notice, though,
> that the double spacing enhances the readability of the text.

The world of books (and typesetting) has always been very international,
and therefore mixed up.

Gruss
H.

--
VCF Europa 3.0 am 27./28. April 2002 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
Received on Mon Jan 07 2002 - 10:03:36 GMT

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