Plenken

Plenken is a German typographical term for the insertion of inappropriate spaces "before" a punctuation mark.

Its counterpart is Klempen, the incorrect omission of a space "after" punctuation marks.

Etymology

"Plenken" is derived as a borrowed word from the English "blank". Its antonym "klempen" combines "plenken" and "klemmen" (“to wedge”, possibly a reference to Linotype machine operators’ slang term "wedges" for the spacebands used to implement justified spacing), exchanging the K and P in such a way as to suggest both phonetically and orthographically its relationship and opposite meaning.

Both are internet coinages, dating from Johannes “Jödel” Leckebusch’s introduction of "plenken" on [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/MausNet MausNet] in 1988 and now widely used on German newsgroups.

=Usage= Main|French SpacingPlenken was once a common practice in Germany due to the standard German typing approximation of the traditional spacing rules, which use a variety of different-width spaces and which insert a thin space or hairspace between words and most punctuation marks. With the introduction of the typewriter and its fixed-width space, English-language typists removed most spaces around punctuation marks, but some other languages’ typists, including French and German, did not.

Simplistic computer tools typically mishandle plenken by treating them as ordinary whitespace, potentially inserting incorrect linebreaks and wrapping the punctuation mark onto the next line, rendering the text difficult to read. More sophisticated computer tools such as Microsoft Word have French spacing modes which automatically change plenked spaces to special typographic spaces such as the "espace fine insecable" (non-breaking thin space). However, such spacing behaviour is not necessarily replicated for other languages and their typists must manually enter non-breaking spaces (option-space in any Macintosh application, but application-specific in other operating systems).

Plenken is increasingly discouraged among German-language typists. [e.g. Daniel Sprenger (2007-03-10) " [http://www.dtp-blog.de/typografie/typografische-verbrechen-plenken-und-klempen Desktop-Publishing Weblog – Typografische Verbrechen: Plenken und Klempen] "]

Examples

*Das war der schönste Tag meines Lebens !
*Ich behaupte ,dass das falsch ist .
*Illustrating word-wrapping problems::You are here ! I am here:, too ! You are just plenking:!

ee also

*German wikipedia’s [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plenken Plenken]
*Klempen
*Punctuation in French
*French spacing & English spacing — different spacing rules
*Non-breaking space

References

* [http://www.dtp-blog.de/typografie/typografische-verbrechen-plenken-und-klempen Typografische Verbrechen: Plenken und Klempen]
* [http://rainer-seitel.onlinehome.de/plenk.html Bedeutung und Herkunft der Wörter Plenk, plenken]
* [http://sockenseite.de/__oneclick_uploads/2006/10/plenken.html Was ist 'Plenken'?]
* [http://www.nia.din.de/cmd?level=tpl-artikel&languageid=de&cmstextid=din5008 DIN 5008, Schreib- und Gestaltungsregeln für die Textverarbeitung]