Did they though? When I read old books vs new books, I don't notice the difference at all. Especially with justification, spaces are already quite variable per line.
I don't think it aided reading at all. It was just a kind of random convention -- maybe somebody thought there was a logic to it -- that got dropped because it wasn't doing anything. One less rule to worry about.
The difference in reading speed only applies to people who are used to double-spaces, there is no difference in reading speed single-spaced vs. double-spaced for people who are conditioned to read single-spaced.
> Although the type of spacing following punctuation marks did not seem to have an effect on those individuals who type with one space after a period, those who type with two spaces after a period had greater reading speed when paragraphs were presented in the same way in which they type: with two spaces following periods and one space following commas.
I'd argue this data suggests the double-spaces are a waste of space that accomplishes nothing except slightly handicapping people who become accustomed to it and then read text without it.
Or maybe slightly boosting when reading double spaced? (I didn't read the article yet, my plane is just starting).
The habit was adopted for monospace typewriters precisely to try to match book typesetting.
Then the books dropped it, but it persisted in typing habits.
Then once Mac/Windows allowed anyone to use proportional fonts, we were taught to use a single space again.
Those « » characters are called "guillemets" [0]. Fun fact, they're named after an early French typecutter, Guillaume Le Bé!
Guillemets require using space around them («wrong», « correct ») which makes typesetting so hard as you have to hunt for each guillemet that fell to the next line to manually fix it.
And even that's not possible on the web, so you have to get used to dangling punctuation.
Also not in Norwegian and probably others.
Quote blocks are embedded, nested structure. Sure seems to me like a punctuation model and a layout model which can understand that, is net beneficial.
I always liked the french <<this is a quote>> model. Somehow it felt more like an embedded thing.
Double quotes have the additional burden MICROSOFT WORD I AM LOOKING AT YOU of the random interpolation of what the editor YES MICROSOFT WORD I MEAN YOU thinks it knows you meant to say. Additionally hijacking the text into badly encoded iso-latin1 or utf-8 mis-parsed, as a free gift.
if I mean to say:
I will say it. When I say please.. leave those quote-marks alone.(double-dash to em-dash.. same problem: free uplift to UTF you didn't ask for)