Space | |
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In Unicode | U+0020 SPACE (HTML   · Note: Representations here of a regular space are replaced with a no-break space) |
See also | U+00A0 NO-BREAK SPACE (HTML   · ,   )Other types of spaces |
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.[citation needed]
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 and other designers of printed works.[citation needed]
Computer representation of text eliminates all mechanical and physical limitations in any sufficiently advanced character encoding environment (such as Unicode), where spaces of various widths, styles, or language characteristics (different space characters) are indicated with unique code points. Whitespace characters include spaces of various widths, including all those that professional typesetters employ.
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 AD. Ancient Hebrew and Arabic, while they did not use spacing, used word dividers partly to compensate in clarity for the lack of vowels.[1] The earliest Greek script also used interpuncts to divide words rather than spacing, although this practice was soon displaced by the scriptura continua. The earliest signs of spacing between words appear in Latin, where it was used extremely rarely in some manuscripts and then altogether forgotten.
Word spacing was later used by Irish and Anglo-Saxon scribes. The creation of the Carolingian minuscule by Alcuin of York, where it originated and then spread to the rest of world, including modern Arabic and Hebrew. Indeed, the actions of these Irish and Anglo-Saxon scribes marked the dramatic shift for reading between antiquity and the modern period. Spacing would become standard in Renaissance Italy and France, and then Byzantium by the end of the 16th century; then entering into the Slavic languages in Cyrillic in the 17th century, and only in modern times entering modern Sanskrit.[2]
CJK languages don't use spaces when dealing with text containing mostly Chinese characters and kana. In Japanese, spaces may occasionally be used to separate people's family names from given names, to denote omitted particles (especially the topic particle wa), and for certain literary or artistic effects. Modern Korean however, has spaces as an essential part to its writing system (because of Western influence), given the phonetic nature of the hangul script that requires word dividers to avoid ambiguity, as opposed to Chinese characters which are mostly very distinguishable from each other. In Korean, spaces are used to separate chunks of nouns, nouns and particles, adjectives, and verbs; for certain compounds or phrases, spaces may be used or not, for example the phrase for "Republic of Korea" is usually spelled without spaces as 대한민국 rather than with a space as 대한 민국.
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.
Languages with a Latin-derived alphabet have used various methods of sentence spacing since the advent of movable type in the 15th century.
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.[21] Psychological studies suggest "readers benefit from having two spaces after periods."[22]
The International System of Units (SI) prescribes inserting a space between a number and a unit of measurement (being regarded as a multiplication sign) but never between a prefix and a base unit; a space (or a multiplication dot) should also be used between units in compound units.[23]
The only exception to this rule is the traditional symbolic notation of angles: degree (e.g., 30°), minute of arc (e.g., 22′), and second of arc (e.g., 8″).
The SI also prescribes the use of a space[24] (often typographically a thin space) as a thousands separator where required. Both the point and the comma are reserved as decimal markers.
Sometimes a narrow non-breaking space or non-breaking space, respectively, is recommended (as in, for example, IEEE Standards[25] and IEC standards[26]) to avoid the separation of units and values or parts of compounds units, due to automatic line wrap and word wrap.
Preview | ||
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Unicode name | SPACE | |
Encodings | decimal | hex |
Unicode | 32 | U+0020 |
UTF-8 | 32 | 20 |
Numeric character reference |   |
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Note: The above representation of a regular space is replaced with a non-breaking space for visibility.
In URLs, spaces are percent encoded with its ASCII/UTF-8 representation %20
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If you are working on documents that will be printed without any intervention from a compositor (e.g., documents produced on the office laser printer), you will have to carefully scrutinize every piece of punctuation to be sure that the document contains the correct character (see table 5). You should also delete any extra wordspacing before and after punctuation marks. The conventions are: One space follows sentence-ending punctuation mark (period, question mark, or exclamation point). One space follows comma, colon, or semicolon ...
2.1.4 Use a single word space between sentences. In the nineteenth century, which was a dark and inflationary age in typography and type design, many compositors were encouraged to stuff extra space between sentences. Generations of twentieth century typists were then taught to do the same, by hitting the spacebar twice after every period [full stop]. Your typing as well as your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint Victorian habit. As a general rule, no more than a single space is required after a period, colon, or any other mark of punctuation
Use one space (not two) after these punctuation marks [sc. period, question mark, exclamation point, or colon], as the practice of using two spaces is just another holdover from using a typewriter.
Rule 1. With a computer, use only one space following periods, commas, semicolons, colons, exclamation points, question marks, and quotation marks. The space needed after these punctuation marks is proportioned automatically. With some typewriters and word processors, follow ending punctuation with two spaces when using a fixed-pitch font.
A single justified word space will be used between sentences. This applies to all types of composition.
Publications in the United States today usually have the same spacing after a punctuation mark as between words on the same line. Since word processors make available the same fonts used by typesetters for printed works, many writers, influenced by the look of typeset publications, now leave only one space after a concluding punctuation mark. In addition, most publishers' guidelines for preparing electronic manuscripts ask authors to type only the spaces that are to appear in print.
Publications in the United States today usually have the same spacing after a punctuation mark as between words on the same line. Since word processors make available the same fonts used by typesetters for printed works, many writers, influenced by the look of typeset publications, now leave only one space after a concluding punctuation mark. In addition, most publishers' guidelines for preparing electronic manuscripts ask authors to type only the spaces that are to appear in print.
The view at CMOS is that there is no reason for two spaces after a period in published work. Some people, however—my colleagues included—prefer it, relegating this preference to their personal correspondence and notes. I've noticed in old American books printed in the few decades before and after the turn of the twentieth century (ca. 1870–1930 at least) that there seemed to be a trend in publishing to use extra space (sometimes quite a bit of it) after periods. And many people were taught to use that extra space in typing class (I was). But introducing two spaces after the period causes problems: (1) it is inefficient, requiring an extra keystroke for every sentence; (2) even if a program is set to automatically put an extra space after a period, such automation is never foolproof; (3) there is no proof that an extra space actually improves readability—as your comment suggests, it's probably just a matter of familiarity (Who knows? perhaps it's actually more efficient to read with less regard for sentences as individual units of thought—many centuries ago, for example in ancient Greece, there were no spaces even between words, and no punctuation); (4) two spaces are harder to control for than one in electronic documents (I find that the earmark of a document that imposes a two-space rule is a smattering of instances of both three spaces and one space after a period, and two spaces in the middle of sentences); and (5) two spaces can cause problems with line breaks in certain programs. So, in our efficient, modern world, I think there is no room for two spaces after a period. In the opinion of this particular copyeditor, this is a good thing.
5.11 Spacing and Punctuation: Space once after all punctuation as follows: after commas, colons, and semicolons; after punctuation marks at the end of sentences; after periods that separate parts of a reference citation; and after the periods of the initials in personal names (e.g., J. R. Zhang). Exception: Do not use space after internal periods in abbreviations (e.g., a.m, i.e., U.S.)
In typewritten (as distinct from typeset) material, it was customary to place two spaces after a colon, semicolon, full stop or other sentence closing punctuation. Programs for word processing and desktop publishing offer more sophisticated, variable spacing, so this practice of double spacing is now avoided because it can create distracting gaps on a page.
By: Wikipedia.org
Edited: 2021-06-18 15:15:30
Source: Wikipedia.org