Nope. Adding an extra space after the end of a sentence was a common practice in professional typesetting long before typewriters became popular. (And for all I know it may have been done by scribes in the era before the printing press.) On typewriters and word processors, typing an extra space after a sentence is meant to emulate this long-established typesetting practice. For whatever reason, some authors of style guides (mostly aimed at those producing word-processed manuscripts) have suddenly decided that this is “wrong” and are advising against it. Meanwhile, much of the professional typesetting world continues to use larger end-of-sentence spaces, and it remains the default in typesetting software such as LaTeX.
Nothing in your comment refutes Biffster’s remark, which is true (you’re both right and I don’t see any contradictions there). About the only exception I’d take is the idea that “some authors of style guides” have “suddenly” decided it’s wrong… ALL style guides now advise against two spaces, it was a gradual shift but has been the norm since we rolled in the new century.
On BCS I assumed either (a) it is still the norm in the legal profession, and/or (b) HMH is lagging behind on “house style” (even in 2004) and it’s in Erin’s character to be fussy about a formatting standard that is actually non-standard (wherever she is now, you just know Erin still uses two spaces and grinds her teeth when she sees one space).
It depends on the sentence - I was thinking of federal gun charges, which have no or minimal parole, but they never said it was federal on the show so that might be how it works. I know someone IRL who was selling pot from a cabin, which would have probably gotten him probation or a short jail stay on its own. But since he also had an old .22 rifle in the cabin,he ended up spending 5 years in federal prison under one of the ‘guns plus drugs’ laws.
It is HHM and Jimmy and Erin work for Davis and Main.
Right. Consider that corrected.
Well, he said it “comes from” the era of monospaced typewriters, which I took to mean “originated in”.
No, not all style guides advise this. The style guides of math publishers, for example, are generally silent on the matter; they don’t care if you type one space after the end of a sentence or a hundred spaces, because the typesetting software most of them use is going to automatically convert it into a wide space anyway. Even some major general-purpose style guides (Strunk and White comes to mind) either prescribe extra sentence space, or are at least silent or ambivalent on the matter.
Like I said, I believe it’s to show that Davis and Main want it their way even when it doesn’t actually matter or is in fact the wrong way. It’s to show how poorly Jimmy fits in even if he were to quit crossing ethical lines. The partners want it that way and want it that way consistently regardless of correctness or who is doing the work.
This sounds about right to me. The point about the time before typewriters is fair, but I remember when the Mac first began to be used at the university campus back about 1985 was about the time that the two space rule started to die a slow death. Of course, Steve Jobs’ obsession with elegant typefaces meant many more fonts would become available to the average consumer, and the style manuals I was reading described the two-spaces after a period as more of a relic of a bygone era.
As to the reason for Erin’s emphasis on style over substance, it seems that both she, Cliff and the partners’ emphasis on minutiae regarding “how things should be done” is really just to demonstrate how hard it is for Jimmy to fit into this world. He has far too much creativity to be pinned down into a word where the speed of the undulating screensaver wave behind a text only advertisement is the consideration worth deliberating about over several meetings. Jimmy is a mover. He thinks quickly and creates interesting solutions to legal problems, although the means to the end may also mean stretching the allowances of the New Mexico Bar Association.
But of course, this is why we watch him. He’s interesting. What fun would it be if he didn’t break the rules? What kind of story would there be if Adam and Eve didn’t eat the forbidden fruit?
… and in the real world, your $400/hour lawyers don’t waste their time typing up their own briefs, paying people like Erin to do that for them. WTF does Jimmy care about proper typesetting - that’s what the staff is for!
They are all Breaking Bad in their own ways.
Mike was under employed as a cop. Could’ve done so much more with his career; could’ve helped so many people if it weren’t for the fact that he was constantly stuck in moral purgatory. Eventually, he just decided to strike out on his own, leaving both the cops and the criminals behind. He now serves himself.
Jimmy is under employed as a lawyer. Not that he doesn’t have a nice enough office. But, he’s really not being asked to do the sort of work for which he is best suited. His inter-personal skills are his selling point, not his technical skills.
Kim Wexler is under employed as a lawyer. She is unappreciated. Right now, she & Jimmy are both raging against the machine. Kim is trying desperately to play within the rules - and is finding it increasingly difficult to do so. She is starting to give up hope. If someone doesn’t give her a reason to continue to have faith, she’ll eventually flip - to another firm - to another career - or to the other side of the law.
They are all giving birth to more fully “actualized” (if I may borrow a term from Fargo) versions of themselves. It’s not easy. They may not be aware of what’s down the road, but they are all fighting the same sort of battle that Walt fought.
Walt just took things to an extreme. Talk about throwing caution to the wind…
Erin is also a lawyer.
To add onto this: The debate over whether to include a double or single space after a period is an actual matter of debate in the legal world. I have actually witnessed lawyers arguing over it, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the writers consulted with an advisor about it, or had someone on their staff with legal experience.
As was previously mentioned, it’s an antiquated stylistic quirk from an earlier age. However, there’s a still ton of attention paid to historical precedent in the world of law, for obvious reasons. And that’s not limited to actual law, but extends to the culture of those who practice it, as well. Jimmy’s ignorance of the custom isn’t just a sign that he doesn’t fit into this particular firm, but rather, it’s a sign of his status of an outsider in general. This is the kind of stuff you absorb from your peers and professors in law school. Jimmy didn’t have that kind of social grooming, so he’s on the outside looking in on a lot of the traditions.
I disagree on Kim. She does great when she actually plays within the rules, her problems are caused by being involved with Jimmy. She wasn’t stuck doing doc review for playing within the rules, she was stuck in doc review for not telling her company about a potential problem, and for not telling the truth about what Jimmy told her to protect him. I think her problem is more that she’s dipping her toes into the ‘bad’ waters, and likes the excitement but is having to pay the cost.
Good points.
That’s why I think Mike will say “yes” to Hector and hire Jimmy for a perfect bluff where they’ll actually lose the case while pretending to achieve otherwise, and Tuco stays in jail.
Mike’s happy, Natcho’s happy; Hector can’t do much.
(Not sure how plausible it is to hire Jimmy as the lawyer though.)
Just watched it again. The scene with Mike back in the booth at the parking lot, with his face beat up and Jimmy and Erin drive up. Jimmy says “What happened to you?”, yada yada.
When Jimmy drives away, he is humming the theme to Rocky.
I just read something interesting in a review. Chuck’s wife Rebecca was the composer of the piece that Chuck played on the piano in an earlier episode.
Can’t imagine why she would have left him.
Do we know she did? She could have died and Chuck’s collapse stemmed from that loss.
Rebecca’s name is scrawled across the top of the sheet music, but she didn’t compose it. It is called Sicilienne, and was written in 1893 by Gabriel Fauré.
Was episode 6 on last night? I can’t find it in Comcast On Demand.