At 2019-07-01T15:02:35-0400, Doug McIlroy wrote: > I agree with Ingo about proposed descriptions of \& and sentence > spaces. Elaboration is not explanation.
The context of the elaboration under discussion is portability and style advice in the groff_man(7) page. On my to-do list, and as copiously commented within that very file, is the production of a groff_man_style(7) or groff_man_tutorial(7) page to which much of this prescriptive information can be moved. > \& is simply a zero-length character. Its primary use is to disguise > sequences that groff would otherwise unwantedly interpret. For > example, "\&." at the beginning of an input line will be taken as > text, not a groff request. Given the general case, further examples > are unnecessary. Yes--in the same sense that Strunk & White's _Elements of Style_ is unnecessary. Every principle within it can be deduced from experience with a modest corpus of English sample literature. > "Sentence space" is a fraught convention, mentioned in groff(7) but > not defined. It is not revealed that "sentence space" is extra > [space], not the whole space between sentences. I did not know this! Thank you. > Nor is the default sentence space stated. A first cut at a general > definition might be: > > BUGS > Extra "sentence space", by default one space character, is > inserted after sentences, which are identified by artificial > intelligence. False identifications may be mitigated by > judicious use of \&. I don't think this is even a bug; it's simply long-standing typopgraphical practice that is considered good for readability, especially when using monospaced fonts. > A personal false-identification hazard: in the court of groff I will > be declared innocent if I call myself M. Douglas McIlroy, but will be > sentenced if I call myself Mr. Douglas McIlroy. I don't see the distinction you do? $ cat sentence-space.roff && echo --- && nroff sentence-space.roff .na .pl 3v .ss 12u 60u M. Douglas McIlroy, meet G. Branden Robinson. Mr. Branden Robinson, meet Mr. Douglas McIlroy. May the \f[I]groff\f[] be with you. --- M. Douglas McIlroy, meet G. Branden Robinson. Mr. Branden Robinson, meet Mr. Douglas McIlroy. May the groff be with you. > Again speaking personally, this discussion has made me aware of the > second argument of .ss. I expect from now on to cut the Gordian > knot by using .ss 12 0, at least in nroff. I'll just be reaching for some smelling salts now. ;-) This doesn't seem crazy in the Times family; but that's troff territory, so I guess our preferences are at opposite poles... > Incidentally, groff(7) defines \n[.ss] enigmatically thus: "The value > of the parameters [sic] set by the first argument of the ss request", > and defines \n[.sss] similarly. A more informative definition would be, > "The value N set by .ss N M". This rules out other plausible values, > e.g. \w' '*N/12. Yes, this could certainly use some improvement. Thanks for pointing this out. Regards, Branden
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