Any authoritative source on British rules on space before question mark?

Is it ever correct to have a space before a question or exclamation mark? is affirming what I always use, but now some translators I know said that I always need a space before. I am sure they are French or something but before I answer them, I would like to see some British source confirming it.

UPDATE: No, Wikipedia is not authoritative unless it has a link to a publication that is. The people I need to correct are likely native English speakers who sat too long next to French translators or something. I need some heavy tome to throw at them :)

UPDATE: The translators ate their words. All is well in the world.

Solution 1:

As far as authority goes, I'd put my money with Fowler's Modern English Usage. In the first edition (1926), Fowler uses what seem to be half-spaces before colons, semicolons, question marks, and exclamation marks, but not before full stops or commas. These 'half-spaces' seem similar in length to regular spaces, or slightly narrower, but half as wide as those spaces he uses after colons etc. and full stops. The second edition (1965), edited by Gowers, look similar. The third edition (1996), by Burchfield (another authority in the field), doesn't have any space before semicolons etc.

Frankly, spaces do look a bit old fashioned to me. My advice would be to not use spaces any more; however, if you should decide to use them after all, it would still be correct—just uncommon. I believe it is still common in languages like French.

Solution 2:

This is just hear-say (in a way):

My father in his day was a "layout artist" - these were the people that did all the text and image layouts of books and newspapers, by cutting out photos and text columns and snippets (sometimes even single letters) and very carefully, and very precisely pasting them onto a board to be photographed and then printed (late 1960's onward).

Now my father learned his craft on a lead type printing press (in the days they still used lead type!) and he said the space before punctuation was often added when the last letter of the sentence would have crowded the punctuation mark, due to the letter's size or shape, and depending on the font used. Also, they used half or third spaces usually, not full spaces.

This was in Switzerland, so it might not fit the British reason why Fowler's pre-war Modern English Usage uses spaces before the question mark, although as they used lead type then to print books (just as my father had), it may well be.

Solution 3:

This appears to be a typesetting question, more than a usage one. Terminal punctuation is not set off with spaces in English because it is, well, "terminal" punctuation. You cannot terminate a space.

As a question of typesetting, however, a designer might use spacing — particularly in a title or such — to get a particular look.