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I have been reading Jane Eyre recently and came across a sentence the other day:

...and away we rattled over the “stony street” of L— .

There is a blank between "–" and the full stop, which made me quite confused. I know that the reason why the author used "L" instead of a concrete name is avoid to reveal someone's private information or be sued for libel, but this blank still perplexes me.

Why is there a space before the full stop? Is it a typo? If not, what does it mean?

Andrew Leach
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Sophie
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    What edition of the novel were you reading? Was it paper or an e-book? If it was a low cost e-book, I'd chalk it up to an uncaught ocr error. If it was paper, it could be a limitation of the printing technology used. – The Photon Mar 20 '21 at 15:14
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    Whatever the explanation is, it is likely to involve some imperfection specific to the particular edition, and unlikely to reveal any general truth about English punctuation. – jsw29 Mar 20 '21 at 15:35
  • It is a literary convention of the times for places and years and this question has already been addressed in this forum. And as the French so cogently say: Ceux qui ne savent pas, s'abstenir. – Lambie Mar 20 '21 at 16:03
  • Having closed this as a duplicate, you're not actually asking about the dash. I've reopened and edited to make that more immediately clear. – Andrew Leach Mar 20 '21 at 16:13
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    @Lambie, the OP makes it clear that she is familiar with the convention. – jsw29 Mar 20 '21 at 17:10
  • @jsw29 Oh my goodness, couldn't even see it. What a nuisance. – Lambie Mar 20 '21 at 19:29
  • @Lambie - "And as the French so cogently say: Ceux qui ne savent pas, s'abstenir. " Wittgenstein couldn't have put it better. – Michael Harvey Mar 21 '21 at 00:13

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In wikisource.org I found a page of what purports to be the first edition, which shows

Facsimile image of the passage in the first edition

There's no reason to include a space before the full stop, and it's a misprint.

In passing, it's interesting to note the uneven spacing of words in the top line of that image. Hot metal letterpress wasn't an exact science, at least until Linotype, but there's generally no space before a full stop and here is no exception.

Andrew Leach
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  • This should be closed for the reason jsw gives. What on earth is the line ... a viaduct dash? – Edwin Ashworth Mar 20 '21 at 16:21
  • If you think it should be closed, vote to close. The line itself was not asked about and is explained elsewhere – Andrew Leach Mar 20 '21 at 16:28
  • Those are underscores. If this line is a string of dashes (or whatever), there is surely no advice in any style guide on earth covering whether to add a space after this contrivance or not. Totally opinion-based. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 20 '21 at 18:15
  • Also note the space between the opening quotation mark and the s of stony. But definitely no space between the long dash and the full stop. – The Photon Mar 21 '21 at 04:01
  • At first I think this is misprint too but I'm afraid I'd make a mistake being an English learner. Thanks for the help again, and that means a lot to me! – Sophie Mar 21 '21 at 11:05