Perhaps. Perhaps the hidden hand of the One-Spacers has been orchestrating all of these problems to wear me down. Those freaks and their strange toilet paper mounting ways are really getting out of hand. Or perhaps this is all a smokescreen, and this thread is really a subtle proxy for the Ginger/Mary Anne thing. I don’t know; there are circles within circles …
(Did I mention that my week was rather chaotic? And the super genius, the one with ADHD to the extent that he sometimes jerks and twitches in what appears to be great anger, the one I pulled in as my office mate because I’m not scared of him, can help keep him focused and can sometimes keep up with the multiple simultaneous technical conversations and running jokes and commentaries on martial arts movies he engages in, this guy is, well, he’s someone who thinks Glenn Beck has valid issues to bring up. I’m sticking with him, but my days are long.)
Very funny. Both posts made me laugh and scare the cats. But who cares. Fuck 'em.
It doesn’t sound too bad, but I would probably want to get in the habit of always having a mental map of the nearest exits. If one day he comes in with a set of nunchucks, stripped to the waist and glistening in baby oil, that might be useful information to have.
As an inveterate member of the Two-Space brigade, I want to make the point that far from having taken my typing classes in Mesopotamia, I am just a few months shy of two decades old. This isn’t a generational war, this is a conflict that transcends age, race, or creed.
According to this poll, roughly one half of SDMB posters use two spaces, and the rest use just one. In over ten years reading this board, I’ve never noticed any difference between the appearance and/or legibility of the paragraphs produced by the two groups. In fact, looking at this thread right now, I still can’t see any difference.
And I’d like to reiterate as well that should I ever accept a job as say, a reporter or columnist or freelance writer or what have you, I would adjust my writing habits to match whatever their style guide demands. But for my emails, facebook posts, random thoughts and school papers, I’ll space how I like and if that bothers you, I don’t know what to say other then that it must really suck to be so easily irritated.
One. It’s always been one here in the UK, as far as I know.
ETA: I’m a sub-editor by profession, and one of the things I do as a matter of course when editing copy is a find+replace to change double spaces to single.
I selected 2 because that is what I would do IF I were using a typewriter, which I haven’t done in a very long time. If I were writing a report or something formal with a computer, I would use 1.5 and 1.15 in other circumstances.
Yes. I was taught two spaces in typing class on manual typewriters (late 80s/early 90s). I quickly got myself out of that habit in college while working on word processors and laying out type for newspapers. The “correct” answer is one space for proportionally spaced fonts (which most fonts you’re dealing with are, unless you’re using Courier or American Typewriter or something), and two for monospaced font (such as the aforementioned).
The truth is, kerning tables of fonts decide on how much space there is between sentences, and it’s usually a bit more than a true “single” space, but less than a double space.
From skimming this thread, I think everything that’s needed to be said has been said, but here’s a Wikipedia run-down on the issue, in case it hasn’t already been brought up.
I am 53, and I have yet to become a man. Or to put away childish things, for that matter. Sometimes childish things are the best (says the woman who got her husband a big bunch of Legos for Xmas last year)(and yes, he enjoys them very much).
Graphic designer here, and while I use the publishing standard of “one space” there are times when that leaves two sentences just too damn close together.
It might be the font, and it might be the justification, but occasionally a paragraph would be much clearer if there was just a little more space after a certain sentence. I consider sneaking in a tiny, tiny second space, but ultimately just let it stand in all its frustrating confusion. (Unless it’s a headline, in which case I do whatever I want to make it look good.)
And as for Claverhouse who mentioned putting a space before a question mark, I was typing up a rich text email for an artist/sign painter last week and put in an interrogative phrase in italic type.
“It’s hard to read,” he said. “Put a space before the question mark.”
So I did. It became clearer, and I had the nice feeling that comes from putting function ahead of form.
Half the time a style question arises at work, I don’t even bother checking our style guide. I consider the case in question and go with what looks better. Nearly all the time my decision ends up concurring with the style guide.
What gets me about the whole space thing is that there’s already a lot of space after a sentence. Even in monospace, a period is the smallest character there is. There’s not only the actual space after it, but all the vertical space above it as well. It stands out.
