Re: extra space after period

[Patricia M Godfrey pmgodfrey@xxxxxxxx]

Sorry, Bill, but I have several books in my library, from the likes of
Macmillan (Hayes, Political and Social History of Modern Europe,
1916), Scribners (Dictionary of American History, 1940), Cambridge
Univ. Press (The New Cambridge Modern History, Vol. I, The
Renaissance, 1493-1520, 1957), Univ. of Notre Dame Press (Oscar
Halecki, The Limits and Diovisions of European History, 1962)and
Herder (Denziger-Schönmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum, 1965) that
have more space after a sentence-ending period than between words. So
whatever the origins of the practice--about which you may be right--it
lasted far longer than the Victorian period. 	My dating the changeover to
uniform spacing to the mid 1960s is based on two facts: 1) the latest
books I have that exhibit extra space after a period are copyrighted in
the mid-1960s; 2) the U.S. Gov't Printing Office Style Manual, c.
1967, contains the following rule: "2.40. To conform with trade practice,
a single justification space (close spacing) will be used between
sentences. This applies to all types of composition." But then an
aterisked footnote adds, "The change was approved after the Style Manual
was revised, and, therefore, is not followed in this printing."
Furthermore, the 3d ed. of Words into Type (1974) says nothing
about extra space after a sentence-ending period, though I recall that
the 2d ed. (of which I no longer have a copy, so I cannot cite chapter
and verse) DID discuss the issue, and mentioned the educationists'
disapproval of uniform spacing. But on p. 245, in matter obviously picked
up unchanged from the 2d ed., we read, "After a question mark or an
exclamation point within a sentence the spacing should be less than that
used after periods, usually an en if sentences are em spaced."
	As for why it happened, I suspect that it was the inability of a
computer algorithm to distinguish between a sentence-ending period and
one after an abbreviation (as we have seen here in the thread about
automatic uppercasing) that caused the extra space to go by the boards
when type began to be set by algorithms.
	I find it interesting that Bill and Fred both cite legal use, one
against and one in favor of the extra space.
Patricia