Wriging

.. he say's as he adds a space in the title. ;)

The weird thing is, that I have come across all manner of (English) punctuation recommendations and none seem to mention the whole space, or no-space thing.

Personally? I've always found the space between the sentence-and-question-mark made reading more difficult.

I sometimes add a space if I'm typing it in IM and want the question mark to definitely be seen amidst a flurry of other letters, but no, it's not really typographically correct.

It is incorrect to place a space before a question mark when used in a sentence.

I never add a space and it throws me off when others do it.

I've never seen that done before. Seems odd to have a space there to me.

Tomorrow I'll get out my Strunk & White or my Chicago Manual of Style.

thank

thanks*

I personally like to add three spaces and dash... I mean since we're just making up rules willy-nilly...

Do you understand -?

My vote is for no space. Never heard of that one before.

I have, however, heard of people still adding two spaces after a period and before the beginning of the next sentence. That behavior became irrelevant once computer replaced typewriters. It was because of the typewriter that the "add two space after a period" thing came into being because it was difficult to differentiate between the end and beginning of two sentences.

My vote is for no space too. Looks kind of weird. =/

Not to be pedantic, but this has nothing to do with typography. It's just the rules of our language.

When in doubt, think about it like this: the question mark replaces the full stop. Do you put a space before a full stop?

The French do put spaces before exclamation points and question marks and colons and full stops. They call it French Spacing. But even this is going out of style, and it's very bad form to do it in English. (And the Oxford English will back me up, if you happen to have a copy.)

Incidentally, I found out today that Cho Seung-hui (Virginia Tech shooter) called himself "Question Mark". I like that.

Well, I personally find it weird that a sentence ends with a space, then a question mark. I mean, why the need for a space before the question mark? Moreover, we weren't taught that in school, so yea, that's why I think it's weird.

But then again, it all boils down to one's personal preference, no?

But then again, it all boils down to one's personal preference, no?

Depends who you're writing for. If you're only writing for you, then I suppose it doesn't really matter. But it's important to know these things for when you're not writing for yourself - job applications, cover letters, an email to your boss, etc.

jmathias- I am with you but while I'm at it let's throw an asterisk in there right before the dash.

Anyway, I never pay attention to it, I always thought it was the same "rules" as a period. A period has no space and seeing as both are punctuation and serve the same purpose, for the most part, to end a sentence, they should have the same rules . <-- see the space before a period doesn't look right, it looks like a random mouse dropping.

davincim: I always use two spaces after ending a sentence. I personally think it's more readable that way even with proportional fonts that we have today. At least to me it is. I'm doing it right now in fact, though I know that HTML strips extra spaces. It's been drilled into me after writing so many papers and reports for school. I learned to type on typewriters as well so that probably has something to do with it. evolt.org had a good article on this. The comments are an interesting read as well.

It is not correct to add a space before a question mark when writing a sentence. I never do. If I see one when reading, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Depends who you're writing for. If you're only writing for you, then I suppose it doesn't really matter. But it's important to know these things for when you're not writing for yourself - job applications, cover letters, an email to your boss, etc.

Of course!! You don't want your future employer to go shaking his head reading your cover letter which contains a lot of spaces all over, right? LOL :)