tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160666377950180297.post7518953291883456383..comments2023-02-11T23:15:22.662+11:00Comments on A Toe in the Ocean of Books: Punctuation: one space or two, sir?Luke J Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05896353294808175635noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160666377950180297.post-15768889175674750612019-01-08T08:41:58.176+11:002019-01-08T08:41:58.176+11:00I learned in university that one of the purposes o...I learned in university that one of the purposes of serifs *is* to guide the eyes through lines of text. After a quick Google search, Lifewire says, “The serifs make it easy for the eye to travel over the text.”[1] I don’t know what evidence is there to back that up, though. But that doesn’t really matter here anyway, does it? Serifs weren’t invented with legibility in mind, they are simply an artifact of the technology available back then. And Wikipedia sums up studies on the subject as inconclusive as to whether serif fonts have better legibility or not: For every study that claims so there is a study that says otherwise. Personally, I believe there’s a much larger degree of legibility between fonts than between these two categories. I don’t think Helvetica is the king of legibility, and I’ve certainly seen a lot of serif fonts that are harder-than-usual to read. So I agree that this is largely a matter of personal taste.<br /><br />Your argument that double spaces help make individual sentences more recognizable seems sound if your target audience is dyslexic. Then, every bit helps! You might also choose a dyslexic-friendly font, or just use Comic Sans (seriously, it’s said to be a great dyslexia font). But in any other context, I think the period is more than good enough for signifying the end of a sentence. And since I want to read the whole text rather than just an individual sentence, I do think the text flow is important.<br /><br />At the end of the day, I’m going to make a point that I’ve read raised elsewhere: there used to be much more diversity in how to style text, just as there was more “diversity” in how to, well, spell. Pretty much the whole world settled on French Spacing. Just for consistency’s sake alone, I think it’s beneficial for everyone to adopt it. I don’t really have a bone in this fight, though, as I’m European and I only ever see this weird double space on obscure blogs (no insult intended) or when Americans fight over this. Again, it reminds me of yards and gallons.<br /><br />Thanks for the discussion<br /><br />[1] https://www.lifewire.com/serif-font-information-1073831Willihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10365050905144042510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160666377950180297.post-87561830603653036262019-01-07T15:19:08.871+11:002019-01-07T15:19:08.871+11:00I think we'll have to agree to differ, Will. ...I think we'll have to agree to differ, Will. As far as the aesthetics go, that's obviously largely a matter of personal taste. The purpose of serifs is not to guide the eyes through lines of text, but to assist in the recognition of characters and thus help read the individual words, to make reading less effort. (There's Carnegie Mellon university research to back that up.) It's why it's helpful in body text, and unnecessary in headline text.<br /><br />If you feel that double spaces interfere with the flow of the text, it sounds to me like you're conceding that it does exactly what I claim it does: helping to make the individual sentences in a paragraph more recognisable. In particular, making sentence endings more noticeable so that two don't accidentally get read as one.<br /><br />I agree the connection to optical scaling is a stretch, but in my mind it's linked by belonging to the large set of design elements that contribute to legibility and ease of reading. (Still on my list of <i>Things To Do</i> is investigate additional presentation changes that may improve legibility for dyslexic people, and produce dyslexic-friendly editions.)<br /><br />Anyway, thank you for your well-reasoned and fair comments, and especially your note about different conventions in different countries.<br /><br />Re the blog spacing, I use two, but the blog software strips repeated spaces, and the effort of adding an extra HTML nbsp is time I prefer to spend on my other projects. Hmm, I should tweak my HTML tidy up script to put them in automatically!<br /><br />Thanks again for your point of view.Luke J Kendallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05896353294808175635noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160666377950180297.post-4511608153708187222019-01-07T11:37:21.238+11:002019-01-07T11:37:21.238+11:00Yes, two spaces really are ugly. And completely un...Yes, two spaces really are ugly. And completely unnecessary – I don’t think your argument of semantic separation is sound because that’s what the period is for. Having double spaces in a paragraph doesn’t just decrease its aesthetic appearance, it also breaks the flow of reading. After all, the whole point of serifs is to guide the eyes through lines of text, and double spaces have the opposite effect. Not putting any space between some interpunctuation (like the m-dash) is equally irritating and illogical.<br /><br />Your statement that English Spacing was the preferred style until 30–50 years ago is simply false: it was merely the preferred style in some English speaking countries. It has never been the preferred style worldwide and in Europe, French Spacing is anything but a fad and has been around for a long time. In fact, English Spacing reminds me of gallons, yards, inches and those other weird old units of measurement: the whole world has moved on except for the USA who for some bizarre reason keep clinging onto old traditions. The link to optical scaling of fonts seems like a stretch to me, that’s a completely separate topic. And good fonts are of course extra optimized for small display sizes to ensure legibility. I don’t see why fonts should be custom-made for larger sizes than that.<br /><br />It’s also interesting that you do not use double spaces in your blog.Willihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10365050905144042510noreply@blogger.com