Posted on 03/27/2011 5:42:59 PM PDT by Yardstick
Can I let you in on a secret? Typing two spaces after a period is totally, completely, utterly, and inarguably wrong.
And yet people who use two spaces are everywhere, their ugly error crossing every social boundary of class, education, and taste.[snip]
What galls me about two-spacers isn't just their numbers. It's their certainty that they're right. Over Thanksgiving dinner last year, I asked people what they considered to be the "correct" number of spaces between sentences. The diners included doctors, computer programmers, and other highly accomplished professionals. Everyone—everyone!—said it was proper to use two spaces. Some people admitted to slipping sometimes and using a single space—but when writing something formal, they were always careful to use two. Others explained they mostly used a single space but felt guilty for violating the two-space "rule." Still others said they used two spaces all the time, and they were thrilled to be so proper. When I pointed out that they were doing it wrong—that, in fact, the correct way to end a sentence is with a period followed by a single, proud, beautiful space—the table balked. "Who says two spaces is wrong?" they wanted to know.
Typographers, that's who. The people who study and design the typewritten word decided long ago that we should use one space, not two, between sentences. That convention was not arrived at casually.[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
I know someone who always puts a space BEFORE the period or exclamation point ! Very strange .
And when did I miss the memo saying you need to use a serial comma before "and" in a list?! If you wrote out your list correctly in the first place, you wouldn't have to worry about people getting confused as to what you mean.
I’m sorry, but I think you’re overdoing it. My original sentence was constructed properly, and expressed my thoughts exactly as I intended.
On the other hand, you’re short at least four commas in your last post, but you know, that minutiae isn’t important enough for me to continue wasting bandwidth over.
The thread isn’t about the lack of professorial-level English skills among the American people, but about our irritation with the widespread lack of an even elementary command of the written language.
You are right, it is visually distracting! However, I am still of the two space generation, and it is a hard habit to kill lol
In the days of “pica” and “elite”.
For printed pages in certain fonts, absolutely, you need to space it yourself using two spaces. For some fonts and almost always electronic copy, one space does the trick as the system adjusts the actual spacing appropriately.
(I’ve spent many years with the digital details of fonts, including the latest releases of navigation systems using iOS versus Android versus PC versus Mac, etc. *ugh* It’s an ugly world in there.)
Wow, now there's a blast from the past. We thought we had it going on because there was an 'erase' button on the typewriter - eliminating the need to scroll the paper up and erase (and brush) with a typing eraser.
Ah yes...the high-tech “erase’ button. It wasn’t until I’d worked my way up to the position of secretary to the branch manager at Paine Webber around 1977 that I’d attained such high-tech equipment...my IBM Selectric even had a memory function which would store a certain amount of words so you only had to push a button to have it type out your most frequently used phrases. You could cut your transcribing down by a whole minute or so!
For the most part, I think you're right, but I'm 54, and I don't recall being taught the two space rule, even though the Catholic school I attended used the old manual typewriters.
I can certainly understand, that on a non proportional font, double spacing between sentences might make it easier to read, but so would double spacing between the all the word within a sentence itself, and I've never heard of that, so it couldn't have been too much of a problem.
The bottom line is, punctuation is there to direct the reader, and if you need two spaces after a period to understand what is being directed, then you're simply not paying attention to what you're reading.
That's just my opinion...
I wonder if the two spaces was done because of the mono-spacing from manual typewriters? We should ask Dan Rather to confirm this.
I just type with 2 fingers, so it’s easy for me to remember.
C 232
Back in the day when I was an E-3, Chief said to use two spaces after each period. If Chief said to do it, you did it. Period.
I’m a typographer and have used font programs like Fontographer, AI and others in designing professional documents.
Two spaces were an adaption for monospaced typewritten fonts, which don’t exist anymore...all fonts are proportionally spaced now, hence, when building professional documents and layouts you should always use one space.
Ed
If you wanted to approach me with the idea of a single period as a good idea, I would listen to you. If you want to be a snob know it all who believes that everyone who doesn't use his way is ignorant, I'm not going to listen to you. If you want to compare writing, accomplishments, education, or success I would be happy to compete with you. Don't be arrogant and expect to win. Know it alls drive me crazy. JH
Kerning is different from tracking. Kerning is the space between two letters and tracking the space between all letters!
We use InDesign for most of our publications, not as user-friendly as PageMaker but you can a lot more with it...
Ed
I still do all my measuring with a pica pole...points and picas, I much prefer it over inches.
Ed
In honor of 13foxtrot I’m going to try out single spacing. He and I chatted a bit and he is quite the gentleman. I really was looking forward to annoying a liberal with my conservative two-spacing idiocy though. I guess I’ll just do it some other way. Happy single spacing.
I haven’t been around much lately DC. Good to see you too.
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