French Spacing - A Pretty Common Mistake
My freshman year of high school I had a typing class, and in that class we learned all the rules of typing. One of those rules was that you’re suppose to double space after a period, question mark, colon, etc. before you start the next sentence; otherwise known as French Spacing. I’m now 25, and until recently it’s something I’ve done and not questioned since the age of 14.
Non-Breaking Spaces Everywhere!
So, why did I question it? Well it came to my attention the other day after viewing the source for one of my blog entries, that I had tons of non-breaking spaces everywhere. After posting a question on the Expression Engine Support forums as to why this was happening, that’s when I found out that French Spacing was no longer customary, and that it was only customary when typewriters were the norm (even though I wasn’t taught on a typewriter). With the word processing software of today, it’s no longer an excepted practice to double space before starting a new sentence. This was the reasoning behind the non-breaking spaces in my blog entry. I was spacing twice after a sentence, so my editor in Expression Engine was registering the first space as it should, and then it was rendering the second as a non-breaking space rather than simply cutting it out when the the text is rendered as HTML.
Hard Habit to Break
In my last few blog entires, I’ve tried my best to type without double spacing after periods, but it’s not working out to well. I find myself having to type the whole entry and then manually go back and remove one space after each sentence end. It’s really not a huge deal, as the extra non-breaking spaces in the HTML shouldn’t have an effect on load times, but being the perfectionist that I am, it still bugs the crap out of me knowing that they are sitting there in the HTML source. 
I know one thing, this will be one very hard habit to break! Do you still French Space or did you learn the right way from the start?
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Comments
Armen: Thanks for the heads up about IE6. Even though I hate IE and no one should be using it, unfortunately people do and I should know better than to not check the design in the most buggy browser! Should be fixed now.
Posted on Thu Jun 14, 2007
Okay, I think it’s finally fixed now Armen. Gosh, that was a bug I’d never heard of before. It seems that IE6 has a problem with Italic text and since each blog entry of mine has the summary from the homepage in italics at the top on the full entry pages, it was pushing the right hand side content down. I guess where the Italics lean to the right, IE6 doesn’t create enough space to allow for that so it essentially outgrows it’s container.
Posted on Fri Jun 15, 2007
Hm… That’s interesting.
lol ^ I just double spaced.
Yep, I French space - and I even know that it doesn’t show up…
Now it’s going to bug me.
lol…
Posted on Tue Aug 7, 2007
Yeah, most blog systems, if you do double space, the second one does not show up. That’s really what made me discover that two spaces was wrong, because with xhtml formatting turned on in ExpressionEngine, and you double space, it actually adds a non breaking space for the second one because it’s smart and realized that even though it knows a double space is wrong, it’s throwing a non breaking space in there for the second one because that is what I told it to do.
It’s a hard habit to break, but I’ve finally have broke it I believe.
Posted on Tue Aug 7, 2007
I’ve gotta say, I guess I’m old-school, but I still prefer the look or flow of text with “French spacing.” I think it makes the text clump up less into a mass of grey.
Posted on Tue Aug 7, 2007
Hey Rob. Thanks for the comment.
Yeah, I actually prefer the look of French spacing over a single space also, but the fact that it’s not correct and me being obsessive compulsive about things like that, I can’t do it .
Not to mention that I’d have all kinds of non breaking spaces all over the place in the source of my document, which would also make me lose sleep at night. hehe.
Posted on Tue Aug 7, 2007
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My name is Deron Sizemore and I am a web designer, web publisher, blogger and serial internet entrepreneur living in Lexington, Kentucky.
Interesting! I have used one space for years, yet at the back of my mind there was always something telling me I should be using two after (what we call) a “full-stop”. I’m glad to know I’m typing the correct way now.
P.S. In IE6 your sidebar drops to below your content (although no one in their right mind should be using IE6).
Posted on Thu Jun 14, 2007