File Manager

Editing File: /usr/share/doc/texinfo/html/Ending-a-Sentence.html

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<!-- This manual is for GNU Texinfo (version 6.7, 23 September 2019),
a documentation system that can produce both online information and a
printed manual from a single source using semantic markup.

Copyright (C) 1988, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1997,
1998, 1999, 2001, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009,
2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 Free Software
Foundation, Inc.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or
any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover
Texts.  A copy of the license is included in the section entitled
"GNU Free Documentation License". -->

<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<title>Ending a Sentence (GNU Texinfo 6.7)</title>

</head>

<body lang="en">
<span id="Ending-a-Sentence"></span><div class="header">
<p>
Next: <a href="_0040frenchspacing.html" accesskey="n" rel="next"><code>@frenchspacing</code></a>, Previous: <a href="Not-Ending-a-Sentence.html" accesskey="p" rel="prev">Not Ending a Sentence</a>, Up: <a href="Inserting-Space.html" accesskey="u" rel="up">Inserting Space</a> &nbsp; [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Command-and-Variable-Index.html" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
</div>
<hr>
<span id="Ending-a-Sentence-1"></span><h4 class="subsection">12.3.3 Ending a Sentence</h4>

<span id="index-_002e-_0028end-of-sentence_0029"></span>
<span id="index-_0021-_0028end-of-sentence_0029"></span>
<span id="index-_003f-_0028end-of-sentence_0029"></span>
<span id="index-Spacing_002c-at-ends-of-sentences"></span>
<p>As mentioned above, Texinfo normally inserts additional space after
the end of a sentence.  It uses the same heuristic for this as TeX:
a sentence ends with a period, exclamation point, or question mark,
either preceded or followed by optional closing punctuation, and then
whitespace, and <em>not</em> preceded by a capital letter.
</p>
<p>Use <code>@.</code> instead of a period, <code>@!</code> instead of an
exclamation point, and <code>@?</code> instead of a question mark at the
end of a sentence that does end with a capital letter.  Do not put
braces after any of these commands.  For example:
</p>
<div class="example">
<pre class="example">Give it to M.I.B. and to M.E.W@.  Also, give it to R.J.C@.
Give it to M.I.B. and to M.E.W.  Also, give it to R.J.C.
</pre></div>

<p>The output follows.  In printed output and Info, you can see the
desired extra whitespace after the &lsquo;<samp>W</samp>&rsquo; in the first line.
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Give it to M.I.B. and to M.E.W.  Also, give it to R.J.C.<br>
Give it to M.I.B. and to M.E.W.  Also, give it to R.J.C.
</p></blockquote>

<p>In the HTML output, <code>@.</code> is equivalent to a simple &lsquo;<samp>.</samp>&rsquo;;
likewise for <code>@!</code> and <code>@?</code>.
</p>
<span id="index-Closing-punctuation_002c-and-sentence-ending"></span>
<p>The &ldquo;closing punctuation&rdquo; mentioned above is defined as a right
parenthesis (&lsquo;<samp>)</samp>&rsquo;, right bracket (&lsquo;<samp>]</samp>&rsquo;), or right quote,
either single or double (&lsquo;<samp>'</samp>&rsquo; and &lsquo;<samp>''</samp>&rsquo;; the many possible
additional Unicode right quotes are not included).  These characters
can be thought of as invisible with respect to whether a given period
ends a sentence.  (This is the same rule as TeX.)  For instance,
the periods in &lsquo;<samp>foo.) Bar</samp>&rsquo; and &lsquo;<samp>foo.'' Bar</samp>&rsquo; do end
sentences.
</p>
<p>The meanings of <code>@:</code> and <code>@.</code>, etc. in Texinfo are
designed to work well with the Emacs sentence motion commands
(see <a href="../emacs/Sentences.html#Sentences">Sentences</a> in <cite>The GNU Emacs Manual</cite>).  It may help to 
imagine that the &lsquo;<samp>@</samp>&rsquo; in &lsquo;<samp>@.</samp>&rsquo;, etc., is an invisible 
lower-case letter &lsquo;a&rsquo; which makes an upper-case letter before it 
immaterial for the purposes of deciding whether the period ends the 
sentence.
</p>
<p>A few Texinfo commands are not considered as being an abbreviation,
even though they may end with a capital letter when expanded, so that
you don&rsquo;t have to insert <code>@.</code> and companions.  Notably, this is
the case for code-like highlighting commands, <code>@var</code> arguments
ending with a capital letter, <code>@LaTeX</code>, and <code>@TeX</code>.  For
example, that sentence ended with &lsquo;<samp>... @code{@@TeX}.</samp>&rsquo;;
<code>@.</code> was not needed.  Similarly, in
<code>... @var{VARNAME}. Text</code> the period after <var>VARNAME</var> ends
the sentence; there is no need to use <code>@.</code>.
</p>

<hr>
<div class="header">
<p>
Next: <a href="_0040frenchspacing.html" accesskey="n" rel="next"><code>@frenchspacing</code></a>, Previous: <a href="Not-Ending-a-Sentence.html" accesskey="p" rel="prev">Not Ending a Sentence</a>, Up: <a href="Inserting-Space.html" accesskey="u" rel="up">Inserting Space</a> &nbsp; [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Command-and-Variable-Index.html" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
</div>

</body>
</html>

Back to Directory File Manager