Note 82 — APPENDIX II WORKS IN THE FRENCH LANGUAGE

The English practice, never to put a space before a comma, is regarded by the best French printers as bad. ‘This vicious practice’ (i.e. putting no space before a comma), says M. Théotiste Lefevre, ‘which appears to us to have no other motive than the negligence of the compositor, tends unhappily, from day to day, to get introduced also into French composition.’—Guide pratique du compositeur et de l’imprimeur typographes (p. 196 n.) par T. Lefevre. Paris, Firmin-Didot, 1883.—H. H.