Re: [Groff] new automake system

[Bertrand Garrigues]

Werner,

On Sat, Oct 04 2014 at 08:26:49 AM, Werner LEMBERG <address@hidden> wrote:
>>> Please use two spaces after a full sentence stop.
>> 
>> It's OK for me to use 2 spaces after a full sentence.  But I'm not used
>> to it, I've always been taught to use a single-space after a full stop
>> (French spacing ?!).  I've just noticed that a lot of people on the list
>> use 2 spaces after a full stop.  What is the main reason ?  I googled on
>> this subject, I found out that two spaces are more traditional but less
>> and less used.  Also, isn't groff by default displaying a single space
>> after a full stop ?
>
> The main reason is to make an editor's `end of sentence' feature work,
> this is, to move forward or backward in `sentence units'.  With only a
> single space, you would stop at abbreviations also.

I've just read Emacs' documentation on fill commands and sentences.
Makes sense.

> For similar reasons, you shouldn't insert a space before `?' or `!'
> while writing English texts: This feature only exists in French
> typography, and other locales probably don't know that there must be
> no break at the space before such punctuation characters.

Thanks for the explanation.  I was aware of this difference only for the
colon punctuation mark, but not for `?' or `!'.

Regards,

--
Bertrand Garrigues