Neha Patil (Editor)

Space (punctuation)

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In writing, a space ( ) is a blank area that separates words, sentences, syllables (in syllabification) and other written or printed glyphs (characters). Conventions for spacing vary among languages, and in some languages the spacing rules are complex.

Contents

Typesetting uses spaces of varying length for specific purposes. The typewriter, on the other hand, can accommodate only a limited number of keys. Most typewriters have only one width of space, obtained by pressing the space bar. Following widespread acceptance of the typewriter, some spacing and other typewriter conventions, which were based on the typewriter's mechanical limitations, have influenced professional typography other designers of printed works.

Computer representation of text eliminates all mechanical and physical limitations. Spaces of various widths, styles, or language characteristics (different space characters) are indicated with unique code points. Whitespace characters include spaces of various width, including all those that professional typesetters employ.

Spaces between words

Modern English uses a space to separate words, but not all languages follow this practice. Spaces were not used to separate words in Latin until roughly 600–800 CE. Ancient Hebrew and Arabic did use spaces, partly to compensate in clarity for the lack of vowels. Traditionally, all CJK languages have no spaces: modern Chinese and Japanese (except when written with little or no kanji) do not; on the other hand, modern Korean uses spaces.

Runic texts use either an interpunct-like or a colon-like punctuation mark to separate words. There are two Unicode characters dedicated for this: U+16EB ᛫ Runic single punctuation and U+16EC ᛬ Runic multiple punctuation.

Spaces between sentences

Languages with a Latin-derived alphabet have used various methods of sentence spacing since the advent of movable type in the 15th century.

  • One space (some times called French spacing, qv). This is a common convention in most countries that use the ISO basic Latin alphabet for published and final written work, as well as digital (World Wide Web) media. Web browsers usually do not differentiate between single and multiple spaces in source code when displaying text, unless text is given a "white-space" CSS attribute. Without this being set, collapsing strings of spaces to a single space allows HTML source code to be spaced in a more machine-readable way, at the expense of control over spacing of the rendered page.
  • Double space (English spacing). It is sometimes claimed that this convention stems from the use of the monospaced font on typewriters. However, instructions to use more spacing between sentences than words date back centuries, and two spaces on a typewriter was the closest approximation to typesetters' previous rules aimed at improving readability. Wider spacing continued to be used by both typesetters and typists until the Second World War, after which typesetters gradually transitioned to word spacing between sentences in published print, while typists continued the practice of using two spaces.
  • One widened space, typically one-and-a-third to slightly less than twice as wide as a word space. This spacing was sometimes used in typesetting before the 19th century. It has also been used in other non-typewriter typesetting systems such as the Linotype machine and the TeX system. Modern computer-based digital fonts can adjust the spacing after terminal punctuation as well, creating a space slightly wider than a standard word space.
  • No space. According to Lynne Truss, "young people" today using digital media "are now accustomed to following a full stop with a lower-case letter and no space".

    • There has been some controversy regarding the proper amount of sentence spacing in typeset material. The Elements of Typographic Style states that only a single word space is required for sentence spacing since "Larger spaces...are themselves punctuation."

    Spaces and unit symbols

    The International System of Units (SI) prescribes inserting a space between a number and a unit of measurement and between units in compound units, but never between a prefix and a base unit.

    5.0 cm not 5.0cm or 5.0 c m 45 kg not 45kg or 45 k g 32 °C not 32°C or 32° C 20 kN m not 20 kNm or 20 k Nm 50 % not 50% (Note: % is not an SI unit, and many style guides do not follow this recommendation)

    The only exception to this rule is the SI the symbolic notation of angles: degree (e.g., 30°), minute of arc (e.g., 22′), and second of arc (e.g., 8″).

    References

    Space (punctuation) Wikipedia
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