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Why do you put spaces before punctuation?
by canadianfella 5y ago
Why do you put spaces before punctuation?
- _Microft 5y agoThis is off-topic but I think I can help. Some languages, like (European) French, put spaces before question marks[0] and exclamation marks[1] and people might be so used to doing it that they even do it when writing in a different language. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Question_mark#Stylistic_variants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Question_mark#Stylistic_varian... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclamation_mark#French https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclamation_mark#French
- belter 5y agoIndeed. Thanks _Microft :-) As you you might have guessed English is not my native language.
- _Microft 5y agoIf it had not been for these clues, I actually would not have noticed.
- wnscooke 5y agoThe answer was good, but just to clarify a touch more... The software inserts the space, not the French speaker. I teach in a university in France and repeatedly instructed students to stop typing that space until a few told me they literally can't unless they switch languages in Word.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- belter 5y agoThe Grammaire Française recommends: "Toujours un espace avant et après: le point-virgule, le point d'interrogation, le point d'exclamation et les deux points." https://grammaire.reverso.net/les-espaces-et-la-ponctuation/ https://grammaire.reverso.net/les-espaces-et-la-ponctuation/ But for French Canadian variations the indication is just a "smaller" space.
- animal531 5y agoInteresting thanks, I've never seen that before.