posted
Back in my day (when dinosaurs roamed the earth) we learned to type with two spaces after a period or sentence-ending punctuation, like this. Nowadays, however, I find the two spaces really jarring. I don't know when I made the switch, probably at least 3-4 years ago, though it could have been more like 10. But now I think it looks weird.
I got into a conversation with someone I'm doing some volunteer work with recently and they expressed surprise that when I'm editing communications for the project I'm changing us into one space after sentence-endings. So...am I wrong? What's the genesis of this one space/two space thing? I do consulting work which causes me to be involved with a variety of people from a variety of large corporations and it is not uniform across these people/companies.
Anyone know, and more importantly have anything useful and official-sounding to back my single-space-after-sentence-stop-stance?
posted
Two spaces after terminal punctuation is a manual typewriter legacy, barely a hundred years old. One purpose of two spaces was to distinguish an abbreviation punctuation from a sentence termination. He meant Mr. Jeremy is the right one. Ambiguous at best.
Monospaced typefaces on typewriters were the standard until IBM came out with the Selectric typewriter which had proportional letterspacing and justification, circa 1966, heralding the dawn of desktop publishing. Typewritten documents with proportional letterspacing and full left and right justification resembled commercial publishing standards and were a major advance in professional appearance.
The trend since 1966 moved away from two spaces because of the prestige factor of appearing professionally published. Nowadays, even manuscript submissions in monospaced typefaces are tending toward one space. If it's on paper, two spaces is still preferred by some houses. But if it's in a digital format, one space is preferred so that no effort on the publisher's end is expended to edit for publication. Books, magazines, pamphlets, broadsides, type set for printing has always been single space after terminal punctuation.
posted
I'll let the cat out of the bag. I know enough to know how much I don't know and it's assuredly not everything. One of my lifelong passions is typology. I apprenticed in a job shop under one of the last working colonial press master printers. One of his more profound advices to me was, "As a typesetter you're a copyeditor and a proofreader, too. In order to advance your skills, read, read widely, and learn as much about everything as you can." That advice has served me well in more ways than I can enumerate.
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited March 11, 2009).]
posted
It's too ingrained in me. I did it in the typewriter era...when I switched over to word processing I kept at it...and, really, I don't see a compelling reason to stop.
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I'm with Robert. I believe I've only seen one mag that demanded the one space after a period (and I can't remember the name of it, but I immediately decided not to send anything to that mag right after I told it to get off my lawn).
Posts: 840 | Registered: Aug 2008
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posted
Thanks Extrinsic, I had a feeling you'd know the answer. Typeset for printing has always been one space after terminal punctuation. I'm going to quote you on that. Posts: 1911 | Registered: Mar 2007
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posted
I'm still in the habit of two spaces as well. If you really felt compelled to switch a manuscript over to single spaces, it would be easy. Just do a find and replace with " " (two space) replaced with " " (one space).
I do have to do this when I post to Baen's Bar from some computers, because the copy and paste sometimes translates double spaces into an annoying that shows up in the text.
posted
I tend to look without love on any odd formatting request from a place I'm considering submitting to. "Change all your two-spaces-after-a-period to one-space" would definitely fall into that category.
However...I've seen enough typographical oddities in print to realize some changes are necessary. Just this last week, I read a reprinting of Heinlein's The Rolling Stones, that couldn't handle single quotation marks within dialog.
Let me put up an example. "I am 'quoting' something."
In the book I mentioned, " showed up fine, but the ' did not. Whoever set their type, by whatever means, failed to realize that the ' on the typewriter might be one key and one whatsit, but ' at the beginning and end of something are two different whatsits, just like the " on either end. (I forget the technical term for "whatsit," if I ever knew it.)
("steffenwolf," your "annoying" whatever it is didn't show up on my screen, by the way.)
posted
Before computers I wrote everything longhand. I and typewriters were not good friends. I took typing in 1976 for one semester, but I don't remember anything from the course (or the 70's for that matter). I never even heard about the double space debate until I took up writing again in this decade. I remember purposefully taking all the double spaces from a manuscript I was critting only to have the author complain that they were not mistakes and I should learn proper formatting before I started messing with other people's writing. It was a digital copy so I told him to cool off and ignore that if he wished. I don't use the extra space. ever. (But if it means a sale...)
Posts: 340 | Registered: Jan 2008
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posted
When I was in college a few years back, I had professors who insisted on one space, some who didn't care, and others who insisted on two spaces. What a menagerie of styles to keep up with.
I'm sure it's the same way in office workspaces. A guiding principle is in-house style rules rule, even if disparate rulings come from different tin-pot-tyrant subbosses turf-warring from adjacent cubicles.
It might be a good idea not to get me started on serial commas, downstyle abbreviation punctuation, or downstyle capitalization.
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited March 12, 2009).]
posted
All of our technical manuals and customer literature uses one space, but I use two in my fiction. Sometimes I can't keep it straight. I was always taught two spaces so that's what I typically default to.
Posts: 128 | Registered: Jan 2009
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posted
I too made the switch a few years back. Now two spaces just look odd to me. So I always go with one space.
Posts: 554 | Registered: Jun 2007
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-It might be a good idea not to get me started on serial commas, downstyle abbreviation punctuation, or downstyle capitalization.- extrinsic
It might be a good idea for you to start a thread to explain what you mean by 'downstyle'. I found one reference to the lack of periods in abbrevitions such as NATO or UN but I am sure you could expand on that. As for serial commas where do you stand? I use them most of the time.
posted
I'll get to it this evening. I've had pages come in that need to be done and an exhibit opening reception to go to in a few hours. My lathed bowls artwork is in a show and I got tapped to provide snacks for the reception. I spent hours late last night working on homemade sandwich cookies, made from scratch: zesty citrus shortbreads with cream cheese filling and peppermint cocoa Southern-style sugar cookies with fudge filling, yum.
Posts: 6037 | Registered: Jun 2008
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extrinsic I do lathe work and carve, Do you have pictures of your lathe bowl artwork? I will be in a show on the fifth April.
I had a portion of a typing class in high school. The teacher and I agreed that I needed to move to another class to keep from failing. I did, though, learn where to place my hands. Once I got the computer, I was quickly able to teach myself to type. I use a good mixture of down style and up style. I use the up style comma rule, and have added commas to my writing partner's work while editing, thinking it was wrong. I did not know it was correct. I remember testing out a typing program for executives that automatically added two spaces after the period. Since I was not taught fully how to type in typing class, It was just something that bothered me, that I did not like.
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Yes, rstegman, thanks for asking. I have pictures of everything I've turned in the last year. My ISP changed it's free personal page Web hosting service from open-ended html to Flash several months ago. There's not many user options available with their Flash posting. None of the options I like, either. I have six images of work I sold last year up on the site, though, a good representation of my wares. Even with broadband the page is slow to load. Six bowlsPosts: 6037 | Registered: Jun 2008
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posted
I would post the recipes, but they're from a protected source with only very slight modifications.
The cookie recipe is from the Basic Creamed Dough recipe pg. 166, from Cookies and Crackers, Time-Life Books, The Good Cook/Techniques and Recipes series.
The citrus shortbreads, all I do differently is add the zest from one orange, two lemons, and three limes.
The cocoa sugar cookies are from a variation suggested in the recipe.
The fillings are from basic butter cream cake frosting recipes in the Cakes volume of the series. The cream cheese one, adding half a cup of cream cheese is my only modification for it.
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited March 14, 2009).]
posted
Never heard of dblspaces and I'm not sure my eyes are trained to see the difference. Perhaps, there it is. Nope there it's not. I guess the forum deletes excess spaces which would explain why I cannot tell the difference.
[This message has been edited by Greenscreen (edited March 20, 2009).]
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