[OS X TeX] overview of what TeX is producing

Gerben Wierda Gerben.Wierda at rna.nl
Wed Mar 2 08:09:51 EST 2005


>> TeX however produces a rather awkward long space after dream!' in the
>> second line of the second paragraph which I find worse than what Word
>> produces.
>
> That may be the American typesetting tradition (double space after the
> end of a
> sentence), combined with a particularly bad underful.

That is something I have been wondering about. According to the American
way, one a combination of quoting and a period comes out like this:

    It was a matter of `live and let live.'

While the IMO more logical way would be

    It was a matter of `live and let live'.

I find the latter more logical because the quote is a phrase *inside* the
sentence (a unit as it were) and the dot is the final part of the
sentence. But then again, a logical way would also be:

    He shouted: `Boy, this is hot!'.

Because the ! is part of the quote and the . ends the sentence. Think:

    He shouted: `Boy, this is hot!' and ran away.

Anyway that is not important, but it does seem in your text that the quote
in the middle of the sentence is seen as the end of a sentence.

   `Oh, I've had such a curious dream!'   said Alice.

Strange, why does TeX think the closing ' is the end of a sentence here?
Maybe the TeX code should be something like

   `Oh, I've had such a curious dream!'\ said Alice.

G

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