Short note - I'm reading a lot of manuscripts and white papers, lately. All good content. I love it!
However, I have a complaint. Will those of you out there putting two spaces between sentences please cut it out! That's old, 20th century training, when newspapers and books were printed with typesetting.
The double space thing between sentences is no longer necessary! It drives me crazy! It puts too much space between some sentences and not others, depending on the font.
We can converse about it, if you like. But, if you send me a manuscript, and we work together, I will delete that extra space. It screams old century thinking.
Any comments?
Even though I learned to type double spaces after periods, I prefer the convention of using one space. Another relic of the typewriter is the QWERTY keyboard, which was designed to prevent sticky keys. For a while, I tried to learn the Dvorak (no relation to the composer) system, whose home keys are the most commonly typed letters, but this was VERY counterintuitive. Apparently, some have reached upwards of 90 wpm with this keyboard layout http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/. I'd like to try this again, and do think that its time will come.
Btw, using the search and replace all feature in Word helps me suss out all those pesky extra spaces! :)
Posted by: Suzie Won Davidson | November 07, 2006 at 02:31 AM
Yes, those oft-cursed double spaces. A hard habit for those of us of a certain age to break.
Posted by: dharmashanti * | November 01, 2006 at 04:50 PM
I'm trying to re-train myself to transition to single spaces too... only because an editor I work with for some journal articles pointed out the change.
My question is the same as Delaney's (above) - when/where was this announced? I guess I missed it...
Posted by: Dan Ward | September 07, 2006 at 02:54 PM
Is this "new stuff" written down somewhere? And is there really agreement that we should not use two spaces after the end of the sentence? As a baby boomer who learned the rules many years ago, it just doesn't look right to me! And yes, see I am trying to put two spaces here...my typing fingers insist on it!
Posted by: Delaney J. Kirk | September 07, 2006 at 02:47 PM