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The issue with that analogy is that even with em and en spaces, the "correct" way of using them is based on where you learned their function. For example, the A
by knaik94 4y ago
The issue with that analogy is that even with em and en spaces, the "correct" way of using them is based on where you learned their function. For example, the American use of em vs en dash and the British use is different. The guidelines are based on style rules, they aren't even grammar rules.
- ggm 4y agoIn effect, style == "is ugly or not ugly" and grammar == "is wrong" and style is highly conditional on education, country of origin, and context. I am british, have used computer typesetting systems since the early 80s, but currently live in Australia which is caught between poles of british-centric and american-centric style guides. Most computer typesetting systems are written by Americans. To the extent they interpret "." as a sentence marker, what they do is therefore by origin of software heavily dominated by what the US marketplace in style expects. Most computer typesetting systems I use are contextually NOT WYSIWYG and involve embedding the markup and processing it through explicit steps. Whilst I believe these are more capable of being told "honour a different style" the style guides tend(ed) to reflect publishing paper journal constraints to space and style, not general writing style. So using T/ROFF with the -ms macros, or LaTeX with specific IEEE journal settings. Microsoft claims to honour locale pretty strongly. I have no idea if this leaks into style beyond s/z spelling and date-time.