The Official "Convince Tom to Single Space After a Period" Thread

[The Poisoned Pawn]

Yes, that's right. Tom (aka Zarathustrian) using the old typewriter rule of double spacing after every sentence, and I'm determined to get him to stop! So join in let's put an end to his madness!!!!

[zarathustrian]

Oh, you.

I'll never stop my double-spacing ways. Truth is, though, I don't think the forum even allows double-spacing after periods. It may look like I'm single-spacing right now, when in fact I'm not. Damn forum.

[The Poisoned Pawn]

Originally Posted by zarathustrian

I'll never stop my double-spacing ways.

Oh, you will... you will...

[Zygomaticus]

I actually find it quite hideous...

j/k

It ain't bad. Most times I don't even notice it, except when somebody sends me a word file where they do that. Everytime there's an extra space after the period there come those green squigglies under the word indicating an error

Lots of such green things on a page are annoying to look at...

[zarathustrian]

Originally Posted by krkode

It ain't bad. Most times I don't even notice it, except when somebody sends me a word file where they do that. Everytime there's an extra space after the period there come those green squigglies under the word indicating an error

Lots of such green things on a page are annoying to look at...

Oh? I've never had such trouble. Word seems to find my double-spacing more than acceptable.

[Swordmaster]

Originally Posted by zarathustrian

Oh? I've never had such trouble. Word seems to find my double-spacing more than acceptable.

Speaking of annoying writing, I dislike people using non-standard quotation marks and apostrophes, ie. ˝I´m a bad example˝ and “these look stupid”.

[remixor]

I always use double-spaces after periods, although I believe in HTML they are not allowed without inserting extra space characters. As such I cannot condone this anti-double-spacing crusade! Since when is that practice an "old typewriter rule"??

[bigjko]

I've always used double-spaces. My Icelandic teacher once lowered my grade because of that...

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by remixor

I always use double-spaces after periods, although I believe in HTML they are not allowed without inserting extra space characters. As such I cannot condone this anti-double-spacing crusade! Since when is that practice an "old typewriter rule"??

Since we stopped using old typewriters!

[Royal Fool]

I've never developed this habit. (Well, not really a habit, more like a typing style. Or something.)

[The Poisoned Pawn]

For those interested, this is an exerpt from "The Mac is not a Typewriter", a book I have for a computer science course I'm taking this term:

"On a typewriter, all the characters are monospaced... Because they are monospaced, you need to type two spaces after periods to separate one sentence from the next. But...

On a Macintosh/PC the characters are proportional... So you no longer need an extra space to separate the sentences.

Yes, this is a difficult habit to break, but it must be done."

"The Mac is not a Typewriter" by Robin Williams (not the Robin Williams, mind you)

[twifkak]

I was forced, from a young age, to double space my sentences. Strangely enough, though I still do it reliably and unconsciously when writing in word, I only single space when I'm posting. In any case, the space in most variable width fonts is very thin (as it goes between words, you know), and I don't know of any programs that automatically widen in after a period (this would be wrong, too, as there are other uses for a period), so I say, carry on, good man, in your double spacing ways. That was a long sentence.

[Marek]

Originally Posted by Swordmaster

Speaking of annoying writing, I dislike people using non-standard quotation marks and apostrophes, ie. ˝I´m a bad example˝ and “these look stupid”.

(ahem) This is an excellent example of the degradation of typography through the use of internet. As any maniacal typographist will tell you, "these quotes" or 'these' are actually very evil and were never designed to be used that way. That's why Word automatically changes them to the proper ones. I suppose computers use them because they require only one key on the keyboard instead of two?

[twifkak]

Originally Posted by Marek

(ahem) This is an excellent example of the degradation of typography through the use of internet. As any maniacal typographist will tell you, "these quotes" or 'these' are actually very evil and were never designed to be used that way. That's why Word automatically changes them to the proper ones. I suppose computers use them because they require only one key on the keyboard instead of two?

I'm sure by "proper" you meant to say, "proprietary" and by "ones" you meant "pieces of crap" -- I can't count how many times I've seen things quoted with two left quotes because "AutoCorrect" is "AutoFuckingStupid," or quoted instead with two ""s because the characters don't interact well with the Clipboard, let alone with non-Microsoft products. That goes for the shitty long-dash they replace "--" with, too.

Now, I'm not saying that, typographically, these things are bad. I'm no typography major. (IOW, I'd say they were bad if I had any authority on the matter, or if I weren't of the sort that forces himself to respect everyone, including maniacal typographists.) I'm just saying that it takes smarter minds to use them than the ones that are typically sat down in front of Microsoft Word, and it takes smarter implementations than Microsoft's half-assed one.

*breathes*

And (ahem) to you, too.

[Swordmaster]

Originally Posted by Marek

(ahem) This is an excellent example of the degradation of typography through the use of internet. As any maniacal typographist will tell you, "these quotes" or 'these' are actually very evil and were never designed to be used that way.

Just to clear myself up, I don't think there's anything wrong with different quotation marks et al per se; it's just frustrating to use them in a computer environment since they don't act properly and mix things up especially if their use is inconsistent (as is seen in some documents). Maybe we ought to take the double-space approach here too: o tempora, o mores - traditional typographic rules don't apply directly in the digital age?

Originally Posted by Marek

That's why Word automatically changes them to the proper ones. I suppose computers use them because they require only one key on the keyboard instead of two?

It takes two keys to write "these" too: shift + 2. *ahem*

Anyhow, that's not the only strange thing about keyboards. Come to think of it, why don't operating systems type in double quotation marks in the first case, since you are more than likely to be needing the second one sooner or later? The same goes with brackets? In 99% of all cases, they come in pairs.

[Marek]

Hmmm perhaps they weren't part of the original ANSI / ASCII whateveritis. But that doesn't really answer the question

[Phil25]

Tom only sends me one sentence messages so it's not an issue.

[twifkak]

Thought that was a rhetorical question . Yes. It's because of economy of bits and of hardware. Besides, back then they were too focused on making sure our keyboards had a triangle key. (Source: the ever-present slashdot.)

[twifkak]

Originally Posted by Swordmaster

Maybe we ought to take the double-space approach here too: o tempora, o mores - traditional typographic rules don't apply directly in the digital age?

This is where I'd normally put in my I'm-Not-A-Content-Producer-But-I'm-A-Programmer - And-So-I'm-Going-To-Jump-On-The-XML-"Content Not Presentation"-Bandwagon answer, but I'm not going to do that this time.

[zarathustrian]

Originally Posted by Phil25

Tom only sends me one sentence messages so it's not an issue.

Like hell I do!