Page:The practice of typography; correct composition; a treatise on spelling, abbreviations, the compounding and division of words, the proper use of figures and nummerals by De Vinne, Theodore Low, 1828-1914.djvu/152

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138
Good divisions may make bad spacing

these endings should be kept intact, but in a word like division the strong emphasis needed for the s in pronunciation seems to justify divis-ion.

BAD SPACING MADE BY INJUDICIOUS DIVISION

All proper names and all amounts in figures suffer from division, but this division is unavoidable in narrow measures. When the author objects to an offensive division of words or figures he should be asked to add or cancel or substitute a word or words that will prevent the breakage. The overrunning of a long paragraph to evade a strange division of a word often produces the much more unsightly blemish of irregular spacing, and this change is usually accomplished at a serious added cost to that of the first composition. Changes like these would seldom be made if the author or the proof-reader had to pay for the additional alterations. These remarks can be applied to manuscript copy only; in a faithful reprint a change of any kind cannot be allowed. Authors who insist on even spacing always, with sightly divisions always, do not clearly understand the rigidity of types.[1]

  1. On this point Drew wisely says: "Theories are elastic,—are expansible and compressible; but types of metal have set dimensions of extension, and, in some circumstances, absolutely refuse to budge, whereforetheories must gracefully yield, and allow, it may be, a two-letter division even in a wide measure, Types are tyrannical, and will sometimes perpetrate solecisms under the plea of necessity."
    Pens and Types, p. 89.