Re: [PATCH 1/1] Fix typos in Documentation/filesystems/seq_file.txt

[Dmitri Vorobiev]

Randy Dunlap ÐÐÑÐÑ:
> On Sun, 13 Apr 2008 23:45:47 +0100 Al Viro wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 02:25:05AM +0400, Dmitri Vorobiev wrote:
>>
>>> Actually, I was doubting whether the "2 spaces" thing was
>>> intentional or not. The overwhelming majority of the sentences in
>>> this document use only one space after a period, however, and this
>>> made me decide that the "2 spaces" thing had not been deliberate
>>> but just a typo.
>>>
>>> Are there any rules about using spaces after a period at the end
>>> of a sentence?
>> See Knuth (TeXbook) for the story on that...
> 
> I googled that but I don't see the history there.
> 
> AFAIK, 2 spaces at the end of sentences is a typewriter-ism, for easier
> visual separation of sentences.
> Probably (just guessing here) has to do with monospace fonts vs.
> (not having) proportional ones there (usually).

The following Wikipedia article is the most complete and exhaustive source
I could find while researching the double spacing rules:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_spacing

To put it briefly, there are three main conventions about inter-sentence
spacing:

o English spacing a.k.a. American typewriter spacing: two spaces after full stop;

o French spacing, i.e. one space;

o traditional typography, which uses proportional fonts and is therefore not
very much interesting here.

Offhand, it seems that the double spacing convention is being currently used
in a more or less consistent manner throughout Linux docs. It also seems to
me that this can be made a requirement and documented somewhere.

Thanks,
Dmitri

> 
> ---
> ~Randy
> [Yes, I learned to type on a manual typewriter.]
> 

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