Re: OT: Punctuation
| From: | Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> |
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| Date: | Saturday, January 17, 2004, 0:44 |
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On Sat, Jan 17, 2004 at 12:51:41AM +0100, Trebor Jung wrote:
> I have a few questions on punctuation:
>
> In different posts, I notice the following:
> My name is...
> My name is ...
> My name is . . .
> Is it a matter of choice, or are there rules governing spacing and
> punctuation...
In formal English writing and typeset documents, an ellipsis should
have spaces between the periods. In informal writing such as an
email forum, it's a matter of personal preference.
-Mark
> Which leads to my next question: In French,
and also Italian; I'm not sure about German. I'm pretty sure Spanish
puts no space before the punctuation marks; of course, Spanish also has
the weird leading inverted versions for ? and !.
> Where does the practice of separating punctuation from the sentence come from?
I believe punctuation marks predate the use of spaces between words, and
it's just a question of where the writers of a particular language decided
to put spaces.
-Mark
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