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David · Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 5:54 am Post subject: Puntuation in French

This may be a silly question but I have noticed that the majority of French speakers, when using puntuation, tend to space it out.

Example English text: That was a very fun party!

Same text written by French speaker: That was a very fun party !

(notice the space after "party".)

Why is this? Is this part of the grammatical structure of French?
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patriccke · Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 2:39 pm Post subject:

This space before "double punctuation signs" :;!? is part of the French typography rules.

If you have Word on your PC, type "ctrl+shift+space" or "alt+shift+space" (I don't remember and I don't have it) and you'll get the particular space that has to be used (when visualising non-visible characters it's represented by a circle). It links the sign to the word so the sign doesn't switch at the beginning of a new line when the word is at the end of the previous one.

Although I usually like exceptions and strange rules I don't follow this one

David · Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 10:16 pm Post subject:

Thanks patriccke

greg in noord-frankrijk · Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 11:12 pm Post subject:

Salut David ! Quelques explications ici.