Talk:Full stop

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Since "!" redirects to Exclamation mark, should "." rediect to this full stop page? I only ask because I'm not sure if Wikipedia:MediaWiki will break if a page exists that's only a dot. --Esse 19:46, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

i don't know why.. but there is no dieresis on the page, i don't know the symbol on the page. dieresis is the two dots above an i or other character to indicate two vowel sounds. eg. Naive.... but it would have two dots above the i.

Contents 1 Full stop or period 2 Inside or outside quotation marks 3 Dot product 4 Asian Symbols 5 STOP versus FULL STOP 6 Canada 7 accessibility and spacing after a full stop 8 2 questions 9 Telephone numbers 10 Re: Full Stop merger, 11 In HTML 12 TomAYto, TomAHto 13 Disputed

[edit] Full stop or period

The beginning of the article says that a full stop is the dot at the end of a sentence, whereas a period is that dot and any similar thereto (excluding the three in ellipses.) So a full stop is a period but a period is not necessarily a full stop.

Yet, the article goes on to call the "." after Mr and Dr a "full stop." According to the foregoing statements, this dot is a period, not a full stop, since full stops are only the periods at the end of a sentence.

So does "full stop"="period", or is "full stop" a type of "period." Which is it? 70.145.102.253 06:01, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

This article is in need of serious revision. It is flat out absurd to say that anyone in the US uses the phrase "full stop," or "generally differentiate[s]" between one and a period. In American English, the period is any "." whatsoever. 65.247.226.95 09:39, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inside or outside quotation marks

The beginning of the article defines "a full stop is the dot at the end of a sentence". However, if the dot is placed inside quotation marks, as in "a full stop is the dot at the end of a sentence.", it clearly is no longer the end of the sentence (similarly there should be no commas inside quotation marks) so either the definition, or the usage of ' ."' is wrong. MH 12:51, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd say the dot is incorrectly placed in your example. My example: _The man asked "Where am I?"._ (Using underscores here around my example so the quotes characters don't get confusing.) The dot comes after the quote character, because it's not a part of the quote, but instead of the parent sentence which still needs to be terminated properly. In this case the quote is a question, so it's ended with a question mark. I'd say if the quoted sentence wasn't a question, you'd still need a dot, but knowing the people who are in charge of language rules, this is probably not the case (similar to how (according to this article) abbreviations at the end of a sentence aren't ended by two dots like I think they should.

If it's just a word, you wouldn't need the dot inside the quote characters, but you would need one to end the parent sentence. According to the "Differences in British English and American English" part of the article this is true in English, but no in US English. I say the English way makes much more sense. Also because of being used to programming a little bit, I'm all for consistancy as opposed to making up exceptions in order to try and cut down the number of interpunction items and breaking logic. The "Differences..." part of the article doesn't mention whole sentences as quotes, just words, so that doesn't really give an answer though. Retodon8 13:02, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dot product

People who were taught to use a middle dot as a decimal point, (like me) were also taught to use a lower dot - like a full stop - as a Dot product in maths.  We did, however, make it bolder than a normal full stop.  However, I can't see a different glyph for that, so I suppose we should just use a full stop.  Comments? 212.159.57.61 13:28, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

---

See also Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style archive (spaces after a full stop/period).

[edit] Asian Symbols

Someone who knows HTML or another scripting language needs to fix the smymbols under the Asian full stop headline so that they can be displayed in a variety of browsers. Right now under my Firefox browser it shows up as ? marks.

You need to install a font that includes Asian characters. This is not an issue with HTML or scripting.

[edit] STOP versus FULL STOP

I recall being taught as a youngster that FULL STOP was a term used by telegraphers. The term STOP was used (when sending a telegram) to indicate the end of a sentence. FULL STOP was used to indicate the end of the message. However, as so often happens with recollections from youth, I'm damned if I can find a reference anywhere that agrees with that. I'm still looking - but does anyone else recall being told/taught that decades ago? AncientBrit 18:23, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Canada

"The term full stop is not used by speakers in the United States and Canada. If it is used in Canada..." - it looks a bit silly to say without qualification that it's not used in Canada, then immediately afterwards to explain how it might be used in Canada! 86.136.252.91 05:05, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] accessibility and spacing after a full stop

If there is to be any defining factor about spacing after a full stop, my opinion is that it should be accessibility.

Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome might be where the research is to be found. "Rivers of white" is what those with SSS have trouble with.

Rivers of white is common issue with full justification (significantly worse in amature applications than professional applications because of hyphenation and character spacing). Double spacing after full stops with full justification would make the rivers of white marginally worse. Likewise, double spacing after full stops would make the rivers of white only marginally worse than left justification alone. It is marginal because it represents about 1/10th the frequency within a sentence.

I have found numerous sources on the web that express that double spacing after a full stop improves cognitive understanding. Since these sources mention nothing about monospaced / non-monospaced fonts, I have to assume a single non-monospace space after a full stop is insufficient for assessibility.

Since it is possible that a person with SSS could be different than another classification within dyslexia, the deciding factor could be what is more common between the two.

Since this is as far as my research can go currently, evidence suggests that double spacing after a full stop is important for accessibility.

My goal is to have accessibility mentioned in regards to 'spacing after a full stop' because it deserves mention to express that assessibility has been considered.

[edit] 2 questions

1 is

 interpunct: 5.2 · 2 = 10.4

really correct?

2 i was looking for the history of the dot when it was introduced... i was thinking maybe it was after the guttenberg press?

[edit] Telephone numbers

There is a section that states the the period is gradually replacing the dashes in phone numbers in North America. It must be very gradual, because I have never seen a single instance of it. Maybe this is a Canadian/Latin American phenomenon; I think that anyone in the United States would be quite startled to see a phone number written this way. I am very emotionally invested in the traditional way of writing American phone numbers, and I tend to get angry when I see an area code written without parentheses; I think if I saw an American write a phone number with periods I would probably drop dead from apoplexy. I have seen phone numbers written this way overseas, and it didn't bother me there, I just assumed that was the way they did it.--Hgebel 17:37, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I removed the sentence stating that using the period was an ITU recommended alternative to using a space. I checked the referenced ITU standard and it had no recommended alternative. In fact, it recommends the use of parentheses around the area code (unless a country code is used) and spaces for the rest. It grudgingly allows use of alternatives to the space, but does not make any recommendations regarding what these alternatives should be. (It does, however, mention the hyphen as an example.)--Hgebel 18:05, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

After extensive searching, I was not able to find any reference to this alleged trend, nor was I able to find any United States or Mexican universities that use periods in their phone numbers. All of the Canadian universities I checked used periods, however, Canada is not, by itself, North America.--Hgebel 19:49, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Full Stop merger,

+ Agreed. --Christopher 11:55, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] In HTML

It seems unfair to me to say that standardized HTML is "siding unquestionably" with the one-spacers. The reason why more than one space at a time is not rendered is not to spite two-spacers. It's because of the way the markup language works. If you didn't have that limitation, it would be impossible to create neat HTML, since line breaks also show up as spaces. You'd have to put all your tags on one line. Chiyojo 23:22, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] TomAYto, TomAHto

Shouldn't the American say:

I say "tomAYto," you say "tomAHto."

The question has nothing to do with punctuation and/grammar, but rather a matter of continuity. The question is more or less 'who is actually saying what?' not how they are saying it. The semantics of the conversation dialogue, as it stands, more closely represents an British person talking to a parrot. --NatePhysics 01:50, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Ha ha! NatePhysics, that's tantamount to how I put it originally. Someone then altered things in the interest of a spurious uniformity, and I did nothing to redress the monstrous impropriety so engendered. Thank you for noticing. Fortified by your opinion, I'll now put things right. – Noetica 01:58, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disputed

The article says something along the lines of 'most typesetters these days use one space instead of two', and quotes a source, Dynamics in document design as saying "Use one space (not two) after these punctuation marks [sc. period, question mark, exclamation point, or colon], as the practice of using two spaces is just another holdover from using a typewriter" to support this statement.

It is easy to see that the quoted source does not match the claim made, unless it could be proven that most typesetters follow the prescriptions laid out in that source. Which isn't done in the article.

Either a new source must be found that does substantiate the claim, or a citation offered establishing that Schriver's prescription quoted above is accepted by the majority of typesetters, or the dubious claim must be removed. I have removed it in the interim, since as it stands it is unacceptable. Richard1968 13:15, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I have reinstated what you removed, Richard, and supplied unambiguous rulings from two of the most widely respected authorities, making three citations altogether. Please leave it alone, now. A word of general advice: you appear to be new on the scene, and it might be a good idea to be less trigger-happy! This article, and many in the area of punctuation, are the result of a great deal of careful work by experienced editors. Many of them are editors by profession, in fact. Just so you know!

– Noetica^♬Talk 13:44, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll accept the Chicago Manual of Style as being an indicator of what many people follow, yes. But it still doesn't establish 'most'. And hence it doesn't support the claim being made in the article. The only thing that would support that claim is not some citation of a piece of prescriptivism, no matter how well-regarded that prescriptivism is in whatever circles, but rather a citation of a reliable source which expressly supports the claim being made (for example, because the authors of the source have undertaken a scientific survey of typeset documents, and established the spacing used, coming up with a tally, and using a wide enough sample to justify the ampliative inference from the sample surveyed to the statement 'most', predicated over all typeset documents). This isn't so much about Wikipedia's idiosyncracies as about generally accepted standards for what citations support what claims.

Careful work by experienced editors or not, however, the citation as it was didn't establish that it was widely followed, only that it was prescribed by some person. And if these 'editors' you refer to wish to bring their expertise to bear as some sort of leverage in establishing the accuracy of their claims over those of others, then there are a few important things that would need clarification. First, that they are actually editors of reputable publishing houses, and not copy editing supervisors in the marketing department of some dodgy company; second, that they actually have some sort of say over the final typesetting of the documents they edit—since merely being an 'editor' is no guarantee that one has any control over the typesetting, only the form of the copy that gets given to the printer.

Most desktop typesetting (as opposed to word-processing) software overrides the whole issue anyway, and automatically sets a long space after a full stop irrespective of the input (or, they are sensitive to input but nevertheless set the spacing after a full stop differently to ordinary word spacing). As far as I know, both TeX and FrameMaker (with its 'smart spacing' enabled) automatically kern to an M/2 space, although FrameMaker treats it as a single character (whereas in TeX that's not an issue).

It's also important not to confuse the object of our discussion here. If we are talking about typesetting, then the issue is about spacing on the page, not how many characters there are, or how many keystrokes were entered into the machine to produce that output: we are concerned solely with the printed page, and how the characters are spaced on it; not to mention how this spacing is altered owing to the effects of full justification, if it is used, so as to prevent rivers—some typesetters (or typesetting software) might leave it constant, while others may adjust it along with the word spacing on the line, keeping all adjustments in proportion, and other kerning rules yet might be used! If we are talking about typing, then the issue is entirely dependent on the software (or apparatus, as appropriate) being used: since almost everyone would be in agreement that when typing in a monospaced typeface, as for example on a typewriter—though it holds for monospaced typefaces on a computer screen as well, one ought to use two spaces.

The thing is, there is a huge difference between the input given to a piece of software, and what the software's algorithms do, given this input, to produce a final product.

Perhaps the article should be changed to reflect all of this? Richard1968 14:45, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Richard, I have reworded parts of the paragraph, and redistributed the references to show how they support the different claims. Note that it is not necessary to cite statistical studies and the like to support the claim that most people have adopted a certain practice. The weight of evidence strongly suggests that this is so. That is sufficient support. Two of the sources describe a majority current practice, it seems. If you disagree with these sources, or are worried that the paragraph says something inaccurate despite this evidence, cite studies yourself: or style guides, or other respected references. So far you do nothing of the sort, but stubbornly ignore the deliverances of the most widely accepted authorities, calling for a standard of "proof" that is quite unreasonable in the present context. Don't set such onerous tasks for me or other editors, simply to meet standards that you want met. I, and others here, are working to perfectly reasonable standards – widely acepted throughout Wikipedia.

– Noetica^♬Talk 21:36, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

By the way, it took me ages to find that 'dubious' template I inserted into the article. Is there any central repository of such templates, for easy access? Richard1968 14:45, 25 March 2007 (UTC)