Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2019 September 27

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September 27

I missed the memo

Since when has there been single-spaces between sentences, and only the first word in book titles (etc.) been capitalized?  2606:A000:1126:28D:C9F:4F0F:4DE:EB75 (talk) 06:36, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

You might like to read Sentence spacing. I always type two spaces at the end of a sentence, as I was taught, but I'm wasting my time because the Wikipedia software always reduces this to one space per WP:MOS. For your other question, I quote from our Manual of style: "Wikipedia article titles and section headings use sentence case, not title case; see WP:Article titles and § Section headings. For capitalization of list items, see § Bulleted and numbered lists. Other points concerning capitalization are summarized below; full information can be found at WP:Manual of Style/Capital letters." For book titles, the guidance is at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Titles#Capital_letters. Dbfirs 06:43, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

It's not Wikipedia (or even MediaWiki): HTML has always collapsed whitespace (spaces, tabs, returns) to a single space. —Tamfang (talk) 07:49, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

I think both issues might be traced to the onset of texting culture, which ushered in a newfound economy of communication. Gleeanon409 (talk) 07:10, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Oic -- lol.    2606:A000:1126:28D:C9F:4F0F:4DE:EB75 (talk) 07:44, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Putting only a single space between sentences has been standard a lot longer than texting culture has been around. Basically, ever since people starting using proportional fonts in word processing rather than monospaced type on a typewriter, the rule has been to put a single space between sentences, as professional typesetters of books and magazines had been doing for decades. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:14, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

No, this is an exaggeration. Documents formatted in both troff and TeX had addiitional space between sentences. In the case of TeX, it was not necessarily a double-width space, but extra space, and it was an option that could be turned off. It is true that books publishers made the change earlier; and newspapers always used to value any choice that might help fit more text on a page. --76.69.116.4 (talk) 20:08, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Web browsers generally treat multiple white space (such as spaces or tabs) as a single space when rendering the content for display, so ignoring any attempt by an author to use multiple spaces (exceptions being specifically pre-formatted text (using, for example, CSS's white-space property, HTML's PRE tag, or explicit spaces). Bazza (talk) 09:22, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

The thing that really killed extra space between sentences is the fact that HTML was designed so that there is no way to mark sentences. I'm still angry about that; I think that it, plus the increasingly wide usage of sans-serif fonts, significantly reduces the legibility of web pages. You can use   to demand an extra space, but then it does not disappear if it turns out to be at the end of a line. --76.69.116.4 (talk) 20:08, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Actually, there is a way to mark sentences, namely putting a full stop at the end. There is no separate markup for sentences, but its not really necessary. It's up the the renderer to decide if the space after a full stop should be longer. As far as I know, using a wider space after a sentence never was a custom on the continent. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:43, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

As for titles, I like to use all caps for my Google reviews, as they don't have explicit titles, but this helps it stand out:

FOUND DEAD RAT IN MY SOUP

...but the price was great, so I still give them 4 stars.

-:) SinisterLefty (talk) 12:57, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm 45 years old and I don't remember ever hearing "put two spaces after a period" until about 5-10 years ago when I started hearing people complain that it wasn't being done anymore. As for book titles, I have never seen an English language book where only the first word was capitalized. That is a convention I've seen in some other languages, but not English. --Khajidha (talk) 14:13, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm 43, and it was taught to me that way in my mandatory typing class I had to take back in middle school. As with every such standard, it was an arbitrary rule that was initially established by convention back in the mists of history for reasons, but as with all such standards, it has changed for other reasons. When it was explained to me, it was done to distinguish between periods used after abbreviations, and periods used at the end of sentences, since the double space would mark the end of a sentence, whereas a single space would mark a period after an abbreviation within a sentence. But again, that reason doesn't mean any more than any other reason for what is, ultimately, an arbitrary standard. When one arbitrary standard changes to another arbitrary standard, so what? Having standards is important for consistency, but really it doesn't mean much. I still double space after each sentence because my fingers just do it automatically, but it isn't important to me one way or the other. If you don't, it means nothing to me. If you do, it means nothing to me. It's not really that big of a deal. --Jayron32 14:43, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Likewise in my high school typing class, which was several decades ago. As to spacing, I'm leaving 10 spaces after this, and it's displayed as just one. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:58, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

@Khajidha: I noticed that when using autofill on cite templates, it fills in titles with only first word capitalized -- which I find particularly annoying (I usually "correct" this, when the actual source uses "proper" capitalization).  [OP]:2606:A000:1126:28D:BDFB:5C4C:7388:11D4 (talk) 17:02, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

I'd hardly call autofill indicative of actual usage. --Khajidha (talk) 17:42, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

The 15th Edition of The_Chicago_Manual_of_Style, published in 2003, was the first one to explicitly endorse one space after a period that ended a sentence, instead of two. This is the de facto style guide for many academic journals, and I'm sure that helped spur the transition. OldTimeNESter (talk) 20:57, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

To me at least, double spacing between sentences helps extended prose flow better in one's mind.  The brain doesn't need to decipher between abbrev. and "full stop".  [OP]:2606:A000:1126:28D:1D45:4CDA:D7C8:13B (talk) 00:44, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

While to me it is jarring. It actually disrupts the flow from one sentence to the next making me wonder if the two sentences are supposed to be part of a cohesive whole or not. --Khajidha (talk) 03:27, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

The tipoff is whether the first word after the "." is capitalized or not. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:30, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

One other change which affects this is the use or lack of use of periods in abbreviations. Back when they all had periods, those could be mistaken for the end of a sentence, so you needed a double space to be sure:

• "I knew a man who went by the nickname F.B.I. James was his real name." <- Old confusing version without double space.

• "I knew a man who went by the nickname FBI. James was his real name." <- New, clearer version.

(In my example, quotes around the nickname would have clarified it.) SinisterLefty (talk) 17:56, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

• We simply called him Dr. K. W. K. Kellogg was his preferred abbr. Will Keith was his given name. 2606:A000:1126:28D:884E:DE47:19EE:3DC1 (talk) 19:28, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
  • As Sinister suggests, other punctuation marks can make it clear. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:52, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Anyone who would actually write any of those examples does not deserve to be called literate. --Khajidha (talk) 16:04, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

There were numerous similar examples from my typing class ('70s).  [OP]:2606:A000:1126:28D:69F0:AEB4:365B:6338 (talk) 17:55, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Practicing following a pointless rule that still leaves it unclear what goes where instead of recasting the sentences for clarity. I repeat, people who actually write this way are not qualified to be considered literate. --Khajidha (talk) 18:48, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

It's nice to know that there is an expert on this Wikipedia reference desk qualified to evaluate the competency of one's literacy. 19:10, 30 September 2019 (UTC)2606:A000:1126:28D:69F0:AEB4:365B:6338 (talk)