So nice to know that there are others out there that care about typography and correct punctuation as much as I do. My boss just walked by wondering what I was "wasting my time" on, questioning why the people reading our literature (industrial products) would even care if the punctuation was correct. Needless to say, I am not in the "perfect" design environment--though is there one, really? Thank you SO much for the great & informative article!
Submitted by Leah Hanlin on Wed, 09/09/2009 - 07:40.
Fun info for people doing their own amateur production. Letters to family, blogs, party invitations, etc. I hope and pray this information isn't meant for professional designers, each and every one of whom should––through their training––be well aware of the fact that no reputable publishing house allows designers to manipulate TEXT in any way, shape, or form (please note the difference between text and type). Quotation placement and em dashes and the like are strictly the domain of editors and proofreaders, NOT designers! Learning is great, but a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Leave the spaces, em dashes, and quotation placements to the editorial staff, please.
I love these columns, type nerd that I am. Though 90% of the people I work with don't know and don't care, unless they want to force me to put double spaces after periods, which still happens occasionally. I confess I'm an en-dash person, with a thin space before and after -- the em-dash looks too horsey for me (except for the custom version in this column, which looks wonderful).
So here's my question: how does spacing work with am and pm? Is is 8am, or 8 am?
As a designer, you shouldn't be addressing the one- or two-space issue (which is not an issue in any standard, to any actual editor worth their weight in kerning. It is only an issue to people who simply don't know any better, which is why there are these odd entities called editors).
If you've been left out in the cold and are forced to try your hand at editing, God help you. Pick up the industry standards (Chicago Manual of Style 15th Edition; Merriam-Webster Dictionary 11th Edition; AP Manual; NYT; APA; MLA––whatever style your agency has adopted, if any at all) and study them for about 5 years.
Or, tell your boss you're not an editor and perhaps they might want to consider hiring one. A real one. Not someone who edits online "books" and such.
No wonder the language is going down the toilet.
Typography and content (text) are not the same thing. Rinse and repeat.
I was surprised to see your apparent endorsement of the use of hyphens as bullets in a list. I had thought this was solely a Microsoft innovation. I have been opposed to using hyphens as bullets because, primarily, that's not what a hyphen is supposed to do. As you point out, it is supposed to connect things. Also, if a bullet is supposed to stand out, as a clear demarcation of the item that follows it, hyphens don't work very well for that purpose--they tend to disappear visually. I'd be interested in learning your thoughts on this. Thanks!
Re: comment above. Leaving the spaces, em dashes, and quotation placements to the editorial staff, might be the case at venerable institutions like the New York Times but @Leah Hanlin's experience is probably more realistic. My own is that editors do not come out of degree courses with typographically honed editing skills anymore than designers do. For most the communications industry James Felici article is a timely and necessary reminder of the finer points of setting type. His Complete Manual of Typography is one of my most thumbed books. I do like a thin space on each end of my em dash.
Here's a question I can't find in my style book. I know the period goes inside a quote mark, but what about an apostrophe? Say the last word is stylin'.
Submitted by Kathy Kifer (not verified) on Wed, 09/09/2009 - 20:48.
I'm so pleased that this is turning out to be such a lively forum. I can't wait to see what happens when we touch on some really controversial topics.
Regarding the divide between editorial and design (or between text and type, as one reader put it), my first comment is that publishing is a collaboration among many people with many fields of expertise. These often overlap. Consider the responsibilities of writer and editor, for example. Or editor and copy editor. Copy editor and typesetter. Typesetter and designer. Desktop publishing tools and commercial pressures have telescoped many of these responsibilities and blurred the traditional lines between tasks. A show of hands, please: How many typesetters and designers out there are asked to deal with manuscripts that have not been professionally edited? Manuscripts in which spacing, punctuation placement, and character use (hyphens, dashes, points of ellipsis), for example, are inconsistent or simply unconsidered. Having worked in publishing production and editorial for 40 years, I don't think I'm the only one with my hand in the air. The fact is that typesetters and designers cannot, alas, count on having competent editorial help upstream. Typesetters are the style guardians of last resort, and to quarantine them in a design milieu and say that they shouldn't be able to question character sequence, multiple hyphens, or multiple word spaces isn't helpful. Nor is drawing a hard line between text and type--the reader sees both at the same time. We're all in this together.
Now, to the fine points.
As for the relative positioning of an apostrophe and a period or comma in a contraction such as stylin', (whoops, I already gave it away) the answer is that the apostrophe should be joined to the contraction. The punctuation should follow. Thus, the correct setting would look like this: groovy stylin', or way cool stylin'. In other words, apostrophes aren't handled like quotation marks when it comes to adjacent punctuation marks.
On another subject, I agree that hyphens don't make the best bullets, but in this role, any characters are fair game: asterisks, plus signs, whatever. But I've seen enough PowerPoint shows to know that hyphens are used as bullets all the time, if only because the bullet character is harder to find. The point I was making is only that there is a time when hyphens can be followed by a space, even if the whole thing isn't necessarily very pretty.
And then there's the question of am and pm. Or is that a.m. and p.m.? Actually, the preferred style is small caps (which I can't reproduce here), with periods and no spaces, like so (use your imagination on the size): A.M. and P.M. Lowercase versions are also commonly used, but the punctuation and closed-up spacing is the same: a.m. and p.m.
And once again, thanks for all your comments, kind words (especially) and criticisms alike.
As a British designer, I'd like to point out that it is not the British way to set off a quote with single quotation marks and reserve double quotation marks for quotes within quotes.
That's not been the case on any magazine I've worked on in 12 years in the industry, and I even checked the Economist style guide, which I reckon is about as British as anything, and that says double quotation marks for quotes, and single for quotes within quotes.
The author said: And then there's the question of am and pm. Or is that a.m. and p.m.? Actually, the preferred style is small caps (which I can't reproduce here), with periods and no spaces, like so (use your imagination on the size): A.M. and P.M.
Where did you get this information that small caps are preferred? By whom? Actually, it depends on your style guide. The associated press style book says a.m. and p.m., lowercase (not small caps) and no spaces, but periods. Just sayin. :-)
As noted at the end of the column, my preferred sources for copy-editing and typographioc style are The Chicago Manual of Style and Words Into Type. Both prefer small caps for these abbreviations, although both recognize lowercase settings as acceptable alternatives.
For we Brits who teminate our sentences with full stops, not periods; and who like to place full stops outside closing quotation marks; here are a couple of home-grown alternatives to The Chicago Manual of Style:
The Guardian newspaper publishes both printed and online versions of Guardian Style.
The Economist publishes its Style Guide in print and in an abbreviated online form. This guide has a section on differences between British and American English.
I agree with the comment above on the British use of single and double quotation marks. Everyday use, including that in newspapers and magazines, corresponds with American style. In books, however, the historical preference for single quotes is still common.
Although it’s not a major typographic issue, I hate to let loose ends go, so I thought I’d add one more word about the British style (my term) of using quotation marks. The use of single quotation marks for principal quotes and double quotes for quotes-within-quotes is indeed used more in British books than in magazines or newspapers. My principal style guide for British usage is Hart’s Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford, and it supports this style. It’s also used by such literary stalwarts at the London Review of Books and many popular outlets, such as the BBC. The Times of London, meanwhile, uses what I will now stop calling the U.S. style, which relies on double quotes for main citations and single quotes for quotations within them. In short, it’s a mistake to associate these styles of using quotation marks with any nationality, although I will miss the shorthand labels.
I find it eye-opening (thank you to the editor writing in) that I have insensitive to my "industry friends": the editors. (I always get irritated when the Marketing folks try to tell me how to design a particular project!)
Unfortunately, I do not have the luxury of having a professional editor, copywriter, or anything of the sort. Our brochures go from Marketing Product Specialist straight to the designer (me.) I often edit text, grammar, and punctuation. I am grammar, logo, and branding police all rolled into one. I just do the best I can with the limited resources I have. (Surprising, considering we are a huge multi-national company.) Therefore, I GREATLY appreciate Jim's articles heightening the awareness of typography issues!
Submitted by Leah Hanlin on Thu, 09/24/2009 - 09:45.
I am so glad to see this article's information at this time. It seems we are at a key point in time where we seem to becoming a bit more sloppy in our punctuation. This great article is a true keeper as reference to all of us who want to be more correct in punctuation usage and, therefore, able to be more understood. I, also, would love to see us Americans move toward the British use of the quotes, but that may be just a bit too far.
"glad to see this article's information at this time. It seems we are at a key point in time where we seem to becoming a bit more sloppy in our punctuation"--agree with this comment cow boy
What is the reasoning behind not having a word space following ™ when ® has a space? One is just a symbol for a registered trademark and the other for a non-registered mark.
Thanks for another GREAT article!
So nice to know that there are others out there that care about typography and correct punctuation as much as I do. My boss just walked by wondering what I was "wasting my time" on, questioning why the people reading our literature (industrial products) would even care if the punctuation was correct. Needless to say, I am not in the "perfect" design environment--though is there one, really? Thank you SO much for the great & informative article!
Fun info for people doing
Fun info for people doing their own amateur production. Letters to family, blogs, party invitations, etc. I hope and pray this information isn't meant for professional designers, each and every one of whom should––through their training––be well aware of the fact that no reputable publishing house allows designers to manipulate TEXT in any way, shape, or form (please note the difference between text and type). Quotation placement and em dashes and the like are strictly the domain of editors and proofreaders, NOT designers! Learning is great, but a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Leave the spaces, em dashes, and quotation placements to the editorial staff, please.
I love these columns, type
I love these columns, type nerd that I am. Though 90% of the people I work with don't know and don't care, unless they want to force me to put double spaces after periods, which still happens occasionally. I confess I'm an en-dash person, with a thin space before and after -- the em-dash looks too horsey for me (except for the custom version in this column, which looks wonderful).
So here's my question: how does spacing work with am and pm? Is is 8am, or 8 am?
Forced into editing?
As a designer, you shouldn't be addressing the one- or two-space issue (which is not an issue in any standard, to any actual editor worth their weight in kerning. It is only an issue to people who simply don't know any better, which is why there are these odd entities called editors).
If you've been left out in the cold and are forced to try your hand at editing, God help you. Pick up the industry standards (Chicago Manual of Style 15th Edition; Merriam-Webster Dictionary 11th Edition; AP Manual; NYT; APA; MLA––whatever style your agency has adopted, if any at all) and study them for about 5 years.
Or, tell your boss you're not an editor and perhaps they might want to consider hiring one. A real one. Not someone who edits online "books" and such.
No wonder the language is going down the toilet.
Typography and content (text) are not the same thing. Rinse and repeat.
hyphens as bullets?
I was surprised to see your apparent endorsement of the use of hyphens as bullets in a list. I had thought this was solely a Microsoft innovation. I have been opposed to using hyphens as bullets because, primarily, that's not what a hyphen is supposed to do. As you point out, it is supposed to connect things. Also, if a bullet is supposed to stand out, as a clear demarcation of the item that follows it, hyphens don't work very well for that purpose--they tend to disappear visually. I'd be interested in learning your thoughts on this. Thanks!
Re: comment above. Leaving
Re: comment above. Leaving the spaces, em dashes, and quotation placements to the editorial staff, might be the case at venerable institutions like the New York Times but @Leah Hanlin's experience is probably more realistic. My own is that editors do not come out of degree courses with typographically honed editing skills anymore than designers do. For most the communications industry James Felici article is a timely and necessary reminder of the finer points of setting type. His Complete Manual of Typography is one of my most thumbed books. I do like a thin space on each end of my em dash.
Thanks!
Useful article. Thanks again!
apostrophe for dropped G
Here's a question I can't find in my style book. I know the period goes inside a quote mark, but what about an apostrophe? Say the last word is stylin'.
Jim Felici replies to your comments
I'm so pleased that this is turning out to be such a lively forum. I can't wait to see what happens when we touch on some really controversial topics.
Regarding the divide between editorial and design (or between text and type, as one reader put it), my first comment is that publishing is a collaboration among many people with many fields of expertise. These often overlap. Consider the responsibilities of writer and editor, for example. Or editor and copy editor. Copy editor and typesetter. Typesetter and designer. Desktop publishing tools and commercial pressures have telescoped many of these responsibilities and blurred the traditional lines between tasks. A show of hands, please: How many typesetters and designers out there are asked to deal with manuscripts that have not been professionally edited? Manuscripts in which spacing, punctuation placement, and character use (hyphens, dashes, points of ellipsis), for example, are inconsistent or simply unconsidered. Having worked in publishing production and editorial for 40 years, I don't think I'm the only one with my hand in the air. The fact is that typesetters and designers cannot, alas, count on having competent editorial help upstream. Typesetters are the style guardians of last resort, and to quarantine them in a design milieu and say that they shouldn't be able to question character sequence, multiple hyphens, or multiple word spaces isn't helpful. Nor is drawing a hard line between text and type--the reader sees both at the same time. We're all in this together.
Now, to the fine points.
As for the relative positioning of an apostrophe and a period or comma in a contraction such as stylin', (whoops, I already gave it away) the answer is that the apostrophe should be joined to the contraction. The punctuation should follow. Thus, the correct setting would look like this: groovy stylin', or way cool stylin'. In other words, apostrophes aren't handled like quotation marks when it comes to adjacent punctuation marks.
On another subject, I agree that hyphens don't make the best bullets, but in this role, any characters are fair game: asterisks, plus signs, whatever. But I've seen enough PowerPoint shows to know that hyphens are used as bullets all the time, if only because the bullet character is harder to find. The point I was making is only that there is a time when hyphens can be followed by a space, even if the whole thing isn't necessarily very pretty.
And then there's the question of am and pm. Or is that a.m. and p.m.? Actually, the preferred style is small caps (which I can't reproduce here), with periods and no spaces, like so (use your imagination on the size): A.M. and P.M. Lowercase versions are also commonly used, but the punctuation and closed-up spacing is the same: a.m. and p.m.
And once again, thanks for all your comments, kind words (especially) and criticisms alike.
British punctuation
As a British designer, I'd like to point out that it is not the British way to set off a quote with single quotation marks and reserve double quotation marks for quotes within quotes.
That's not been the case on any magazine I've worked on in 12 years in the industry, and I even checked the Economist style guide, which I reckon is about as British as anything, and that says double quotation marks for quotes, and single for quotes within quotes.
a.m. and p.m.
The author said: And then there's the question of am and pm. Or is that a.m. and p.m.? Actually, the preferred style is small caps (which I can't reproduce here), with periods and no spaces, like so (use your imagination on the size): A.M. and P.M.
Where did you get this information that small caps are preferred? By whom? Actually, it depends on your style guide. The associated press style book says a.m. and p.m., lowercase (not small caps) and no spaces, but periods. Just sayin. :-)
Ending clipped
You say your "favorites" are the following, but only list one entry. Was the post cut off?
Ending restored
My bad. Sorry once again, Jim!
Terri Stone
Editor in Chief, CreativePro.com
Felici replies: A.M and P.M. revisited
As noted at the end of the column, my preferred sources for copy-editing and typographioc style are The Chicago Manual of Style and Words Into Type. Both prefer small caps for these abbreviations, although both recognize lowercase settings as acceptable alternatives.
British v American style
For we Brits who teminate our sentences with full stops, not periods; and who like to place full stops outside closing quotation marks; here are a couple of home-grown alternatives to The Chicago Manual of Style:
I agree with the comment above on the British use of single and double quotation marks. Everyday use, including that in newspapers and magazines, corresponds with American style. In books, however, the historical preference for single quotes is still common.
Keith Bell, a Scottish web designer.
Thanks,
once again, for an informative article, and for not dumbing it down, or hamming it up.
I appreciate your regard for language and meaning.
more from Jim Felici about quotation styles
Although it’s not a major typographic issue, I hate to let loose ends go, so I thought I’d add one more word about the British style (my term) of using quotation marks. The use of single quotation marks for principal quotes and double quotes for quotes-within-quotes is indeed used more in British books than in magazines or newspapers. My principal style guide for British usage is Hart’s Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford, and it supports this style. It’s also used by such literary stalwarts at the London Review of Books and many popular outlets, such as the BBC. The Times of London, meanwhile, uses what I will now stop calling the U.S. style, which relies on double quotes for main citations and single quotes for quotations within them. In short, it’s a mistake to associate these styles of using quotation marks with any nationality, although I will miss the shorthand labels.
Just have to respond--again. Type vs. text
I find it eye-opening (thank you to the editor writing in) that I have insensitive to my "industry friends": the editors. (I always get irritated when the Marketing folks try to tell me how to design a particular project!)
Unfortunately, I do not have the luxury of having a professional editor, copywriter, or anything of the sort. Our brochures go from Marketing Product Specialist straight to the designer (me.) I often edit text, grammar, and punctuation. I am grammar, logo, and branding police all rolled into one. I just do the best I can with the limited resources I have. (Surprising, considering we are a huge multi-national company.) Therefore, I GREATLY appreciate Jim's articles heightening the awareness of typography issues!
For the record, my em's don't use spaces
However, I have found that it REALLY depends on the typeface.
Again, wonderful article
I am so glad to see this article's information at this time. It seems we are at a key point in time where we seem to becoming a bit more sloppy in our punctuation. This great article is a true keeper as reference to all of us who want to be more correct in punctuation usage and, therefore, able to be more understood. I, also, would love to see us Americans move toward the British use of the quotes, but that may be just a bit too far.
Thanks for the hard work.
Steve
good idea
"glad to see this article's information at this time. It seems we are at a key point in time where we seem to becoming a bit more sloppy in our punctuation"--agree with this comment cow boy
Characters followed by a word space
What is the reasoning behind not having a word space following ™ when ® has a space? One is just a symbol for a registered trademark and the other for a non-registered mark.
Punctuation Article
So very helpful! Thanks mucho