line adjustment at the end of a sentence

[Tom Kramer]

Hello emacs help -

I have had the following simple problem with emacs for over two decades, so I figured it was time to ask if there is a solution. The problem is: when a sentence ends at the end of a line, if the paragraph containing the sentence is adjusted by hitting Esc-Q, the last word of the sentence is moved to the next line, so that extra white space appears. Here is an example. It is set in fixed width font as I am typing. If you do not get it in fixed-width font, reset it in fixed-width font.

I type the following and then I use Esc-Q to reset the paragraph.

9/19/12 Worked 9.5 hours. Spent 1 hour misc. Spent 0.5 hour RTFI. Watched
Mitutoyo vid of IMTS QIF demo. Exchanged email messages with Bob Brown.

The paragraph is reset automatically as follows. The word Brown has been moved from the
end of the second line to the beginning of a third line.

9/19/12 Worked 9.5 hours. Spent 1 hour misc. Spent 0.5 hour RTFI. Watched
Mitutoyo vid of IMTS QIF demo. Exchanged email messages with Bob
Brown.

This makes no sense. The word Brown fits easily within the right fill column (75 in Text Fill mode). The reset paragraph looks terrible. I get annoyed and move Brown back to the end of the second line. I have just wasted fifteen seconds or so. This happens about once each working day. A quarter minute for 200 days a year for 20 years is 1000 minutes I have wasted on this dumb problem.

Is there a way to get emacs to stop doing that? Thanks.

Tom Kramer
kramer@cme.nist.gov