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Writer's Haven => Quill and Feather Pub [Public] => Topic started by: notthatamanda on August 13, 2019, 09:45:22 AM

Title: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: notthatamanda on August 13, 2019, 09:45:22 AM
I know I'm old but this really drove it home for me.  Can't believe I missed the memo.  The interoffice memo with everybody's name on it that you cross off after you read it.  Who crossed my name off?  Kidding, I know exactly who it was.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: Post-Crisis D on August 13, 2019, 11:32:44 AM
Pfft.  It's probably the same people that think using proper punctuation and spelling in text messages is rude.

Quote
"Did you mention the rules? Now, listen. Bit of advice. Tell me the truth if you think you know it, lay down the law, if you’re feeling brave. But, Daleks, never, ever tell me the rules."
~The Doctor
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: Jeff Tanyard on August 13, 2019, 05:54:00 PM
Pfft.  It's probably the same people that think using proper punctuation and spelling in text messages is rude.


In a world in which the comma has become an all-purpose punctuation mark, probably due to it being the weakest mark and therefore the easiest to abuse, proper use of periods and semicolons is a revolutionary act.

And if you really want to hoist the black flag and start slitting throats, then you'll use colons, too.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: VanessaC on August 13, 2019, 07:06:05 PM
I still naturally put the two spaces in - I don't bother editing emails, blog posts, etc, but I do a find and replace on my books before they're uploaded. and often find that I've randomly put in multiple spaces for no good reason ...

I will happily join the revolution - I always use punctuation and full words in text messages. I've even been known to use a semi colon in my books, and the occasional colon in my day job. We need a flag!!

And as another random thought on writing, one of the businesses I worked for had a "house style" that insisted that you did not ever put "Dear John" or "Hi John" at the start of emails - you were just supposed to put the email address and then launch into the email text. I think they also had rules about how you were supposed to sign off emails, too. I think that's quite widespread practice, and I hate it. You wouldn't ever send a letter with just someone's address and then launch into the body of the letter. It's rude. So, all my emails had a "Dear John" or "Hi John" or equivalent to start with.

Sorry for the rant. I feel better now. As you were.

 :icon_mrgreen:
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: Vinjii on August 13, 2019, 07:13:43 PM
Despite learning to type on a typewriter in the mid-90's, I was never taught the double space rule, and I'm glad. I'm a creature of habit, and I'd be typing two spaces for all of eternity.

When I moved from Switzerland to England, I got an English keyboard...I figured since the only difference is the y and z are inverted, I'd just get used to it.

Wrong. Every bloody punctuation mark is in a different place.

I gave up very quickly, and am now typing with Swiss settings on an English keyboard, eternally confusing my other half.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: notthatamanda on August 13, 2019, 08:11:26 PM
I still naturally put the two spaces in - I don't bother editing emails, blog posts, etc, but I do a find and replace on my books before they're uploaded. and often find that I've randomly put in multiple spaces for no good reason ...

I will happily join the revolution - I always use punctuation and full words in text messages. I've even been known to use a semi colon in my books, and the occasional colon in my day job. We need a flag!!

And as another random thought on writing, one of the businesses I worked for had a "house style" that insisted that you did not ever put "Dear John" or "Hi John" at the start of emails - you were just supposed to put the email address and then launch into the email text. I think they also had rules about how you were supposed to sign off emails, too. I think that's quite widespread practice, and I hate it. You wouldn't ever send a letter with just someone's address and then launch into the body of the letter. It's rude. So, all my emails had a "Dear John" or "Hi John" or equivalent to start with.

Sorry for the rant. I feel better now. As you were.

 :icon_mrgreen:
I had a manager who insisted we enter all our notes in the customer data base in all caps because they insisted that was more readable.   :HB
I didn't do it.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: Simon Haynes on August 13, 2019, 08:38:09 PM
I had a manager who insisted we enter all our notes in the customer data base in all caps because they insisted that was more readable.   :HB
I didn't do it.

Where I worked, I used to write all the software.  That would have been a case (hah) of one line of code: notes = notes.toupper();

Then people could have entered it in lower case and everyone would be happy.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: VanessaC on August 13, 2019, 08:54:38 PM
I had a manager who insisted we enter all our notes in the customer data base in all caps because they insisted that was more readable.   :HB
I didn't do it.

Nope, nope and nope. I'm with you there. Perhaps you should have sent all communications to him in ALL CAPS as he clearly loved it, and it would have been a fantastically passive aggressive way of making your point ... (I'm getting more evil as I get older).
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: RiverRun on August 13, 2019, 09:17:56 PM
When I first started dropping the second space, I thought I would never get used to it. But once I got the hang of it, I found it saved me a lot of trouble. Just think how many useless key hits that little rule has saved me! I'm glad they changed it. I find it much harder to remember the oxford comma though. It always looks wrong to me even when it isn't.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: notthatamanda on August 13, 2019, 09:27:27 PM
Yeah, it's not a big deal to me to change it, if it's for a reason that makes sense, in this case, the scalable font.   And I'm really glad I found it out before I started getting all my books into print.  The google results were pretty brutal though, one was, "You know you're over 40 if you still put two spaces in after a period."

I thought the Oxford comma was a regional thing.  Commas are just tough no matter what.  I probably use too many of them.  I hear my elementary school teachers saying "commas are like parentheses".  Oh man parentheses is a whole other ball of wax.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: Post-Crisis D on August 14, 2019, 12:51:43 AM
Someone should make a USB keyboard with a space bar and a double-space bar.  grint
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: Post-Crisis D on August 14, 2019, 12:57:20 AM
I had a manager who insisted we enter all our notes in the customer data base in all caps because they insisted that was more readable.   :HB
I didn't do it.

We do personalized mailings for a customer who has entries in their database mixed, sometimes in the same record.  So, you'll see an entry for someone like "JANE Doe."  And then it would look silly for the message to be addressed to "Dear JANE" so I have to go through and fix it, which I could automate if not for last names like McCoy which would end up as Mccoy unless I make an exception in the script for "Mc" but then there would be "Mac" and what happens when you have "MacDonald" versus "Maccaroy" or something?  Oy.

Far easier to get things right at the point of entry which is when the name is entered into the database.  Easy enough to switch to ALL CAPS when necessary, as when addressing the outer mail piece.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: notthatamanda on August 14, 2019, 01:15:13 AM
He just couldn't type and I get that it was easier for him to do it all in caps, but the amount of times I heard him insist it was because it was more readable...
We had separate fields for the company names and contact names.  Those were all properly capitalized, it was the notes fields where you could literally have paragraphs of history, all in caps if he had done them that was the issue.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: ingobernable on August 14, 2019, 03:44:36 AM
When I see two spaces, it's harder for me to focus on the text. My first instinct is to try to fix it like I do when I edit my books, and then, when I go back to reread the text, I imagine it's being said with huge pauses in between as if a very old person was struggling to speak. It drives me crazy because it feels like something is missing, but I'm pretty sure I started noticing it only after I became an author because my proofreader kept finding an extra space here and there, so I learned to look for those.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: dgcasey on August 14, 2019, 04:11:33 AM
Quote
"Did you mention the rules? Now, listen. Bit of advice. Tell me the truth if you think you know it, lay down the law, if you’re feeling brave. But, Daleks, never, ever tell me the rules."
~The Doctor

Wow! My favorite episode of the Doctor. As you could probably tell from my tagline.

As for extra spaces after periods, it took me more than a month to stop hitting that space twice when I decided to make the change. It was my editor that refused to edit my manuscripts until I went through and got rid of every double space. What a pain in the butt she is. If she wasn't my daughter, I'd fire her.   Grin
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: Bill Hiatt on August 14, 2019, 04:51:21 AM
One of the reasons I think the two spaces may have persisted into word processing to some extent was the way in which proportional fonts worked early on. I remember thinking that sometimes the space for the sentence break looked too small to be clear. (In the same way, justified text was a freak show in the beginning--even short lines got justified, sometimes with hideous results.)

As word processing software got better at handling proportional fonts, the single space was more than for sentence breaks. Since publishing had already adopted the single space, as had web design, it became nature to make it universal
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: Post-Crisis D on August 14, 2019, 05:16:31 AM
Well, to toss some fuel on the flames . . .

The Oxford comma

 :haironfire

 :hehe
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: notthatamanda on August 14, 2019, 05:32:47 AM
Pro Owl, Anti Oxford Comma.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: Kristen.s.walker on August 14, 2019, 11:09:46 AM
You will pry the Oxford Comma out of my cold, dead hands.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: notthatamanda on August 14, 2019, 11:29:44 AM
You guys need to google Opus runs for president on the two spaces after the comma platform. Not to be bossy.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: JRTomlin on August 14, 2019, 12:34:39 PM
I use full words and correct punctuation in Twitter which makes me a full-blown Luddite.  :hehe

ETA: I go back after my first draft and put in the Oxford comma. I grew up not using it and my mind still refuses to admit that such a thing exists. 😜
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: cecilia_writer on August 14, 2019, 10:57:14 PM
I'm the secretary of a local committee and one of the others often drafts policies and papers and then asks me to tidy them up. I can cope with almost everything else but her use of a space before and after commas drives me to the brink of despair!
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: notthatamanda on August 14, 2019, 11:01:08 PM
I don't think I've ever seen that.  Is it because they are typing and they hit the space bar after the word?  Sometimes I do that but I go back and put the comma where is belongs.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: cecilia_writer on August 14, 2019, 11:06:34 PM
I don't think I've ever seen that.  Is it because they are typing and they hit the space bar after the word?  Sometimes I do that but I go back and put the comma where is belongs.

I suppose it might be that, but it happens almost every time so I am sure she thinks it's the right thing to do. (There is no sign that she has ever gone back to change it!)
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: VanessaC on August 14, 2019, 11:07:46 PM
I use full words and correct punctuation in Twitter which makes me a full-blown Luddite.  :hehe

ETA: I go back after my first draft and put in the Oxford comma. I grew up not using it and my mind still refuses to admit that such a thing exists. 😜

I never used to see the purpose or benefit to the Oxford comma until I had a light edit on my first book and thought it was helpful.  It's still not automatic, but I find it helpful. Of course, I often also make up my own grammar rules, too ...  :hehe

I'm the secretary of a local committee and one of the others often drafts policies and papers and then asks me to tidy them up. I can cope with almost everything else but her use of a space before and after commas drives me to the brink of despair!

Now, that's just wrong. At least with today's software a find and replace shouldn't take too long.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: Post-Crisis D on August 15, 2019, 01:19:13 AM
Saw something yesterday where they had put a space before the comma but not after.

There is also the matter of ellipses.  There is an actual ellipsis glyph in most fonts (…) but apparently you're not supposed to use it.  You're supposed to use three periods with a space in between (. . .) instead.  In any event, the proper form is three dots.  Not two dots, not four dots and certainly not an endless number of dots . . . . . .  Oy.  Three dots, spaces debatable.  (...)

Anyway, I remember many moons ago, in my English class, we had to do a group report or story or something.  Sad that I cannot even remember what it was.  Anyway, my group stayed after school one day to use the computer to work on it.  We each took turns at the computer.  Well, the maniac before me had used an ellipsis at the end of a sentence, which was fine but . . . back then, there was no (to my knowledge) ellipsis character on an Apple IIe keyboard.  So, despite my protests, he had typed several dots like a crazy person.

So, of course, as soon as I got on the computer, and much to the others' protests that I was wasting time, I went back (arrow keys, no mouse) and made it three periods as was proper form.  Three, not five or seven or however many he had typed.  Three!

It was a group paper, after all, and I didn't want to have a lower grade because someone couldn't follow basic punctuation rules.

As a side note, not only do I not remember what the report or story or whatever was about, I also don't remember the grade on it.  But, for sure, we didn't get penalized for using an improper ellipsis.  ;)
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: JRTomlin on August 15, 2019, 02:31:58 AM
Oh, ellipses, which I admit to having a passing fondness for (my editor says OVERfondness) can be a matter of huge debate depending on which style guide you use. Space before and after? No space before and after? Space between each 'dot'? five or ten 'dots'? Or the despised keyboard ellipsis? It may be nearly as abused as the poor comma.  :icon_rofl:
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: Post-Crisis D on August 15, 2019, 02:34:13 AM
Are commas nothing more than depressed right single quote marks?  :icon_think:
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: notthatamanda on August 15, 2019, 03:49:57 AM
Oh, ellipses, which I admit to having a passing fondness for (my editor says OVERfondness) can be a matter of huge debate depending on which style guide you use. Space before and after? No space before and after? Space between each 'dot'? five or ten 'dots'? Or the despised keyboard ellipsis? It may be nearly as abused as the poor comma.  :icon_rofl:
Hi, I'm notthatamanda, I'm an ellipse overuser.  No spaces, before, after or in between.  The person who is formatting my print book took out all the second spaces after the period, but I don't think they did anything with my ellipses.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: spin52 on August 18, 2019, 02:29:13 AM
I'm the secretary of a local committee and one of the others often drafts policies and papers and then asks me to tidy them up. I can cope with almost everything else but her use of a space before and after commas drives me to the brink of despair!
Now that's one I've never seen, thank heavens. I am always puzzled by the 'two spaces after the period' debate because I was never taught anywhere (high school, j-school, several newspapers and two magazines) to put two spaces. One is quite enough.
As for the Oxford comma, I refuse to take sides. Sometimes I use it and sometimes I don't. I read the sentence aloud, and if I pause naturally at that point, I throw in a comma.  It seems to work.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: JRTomlin on August 18, 2019, 04:31:14 AM
Amusingly, (to me anyway) I am trying to break my ellipses addiction which has led to the abuse of the em dash. And yes, I know they don't serve the same purpose but needs must when the devil drives.   :eek:
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: PJ Post on August 18, 2019, 05:48:39 AM
I use punctuation to guide the reader, which I believe was its original purpose, like sheet music for the orator. I think the emotion of the prose is more important than any specific grammar guide or recommendation.

And I still use two spaces between sentences in my books, so feel free to get off my lawn.  grint
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: Bill Hiatt on August 19, 2019, 02:30:02 AM
On Word, typing three dots causes an autocorrect to three dots with spaces. The spaced version looks more natural to me. However, I've never put a space before or after the ellipsis. My most recent editor added spaces before and after, but no one ever has before.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: JRTomlin on August 19, 2019, 02:42:11 AM
You can turn off that autocorrect.  grint
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: She-la-te-da on August 22, 2019, 12:41:02 AM
Quote
(I'm getting more evil as I get older)

Funny how that happens.

Anyway, I was taught two spaces after a period (or any other sentence-ending punctuation). When I began using a computer keyboard, I learned that it wasn't done that way any longer (we'd even done two spaces on the old typesetting machine I used in my newspaper job), and trained myself out of it.

For ellipses, three dots, no space before or between, and no punctuation after. That's how I remember it from school, and that's how I do it. There is a space between an ellipsis and the next sentence, though.

I follow the comma usage I was taught in school, although that seems to have changed as well. I got marked down for using too many in my college classes, though the teacher didn't really take off the grade for them, as she understood I was correct according to my age. She was a young thing, probably thought I learned to write on slates.

Fixed a typo, so decided to add that I see a lot of the space before a punctuation mark, often with either one after, or none, which makes for hard reading. Why people do this, I have no clue.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: JRTomlin on August 22, 2019, 12:59:55 AM
Come to think of it, there is a time when you will see what looks like for dots in an ellipsis. If it comes at the end of a sentence, you are supposed to keep the period and then add the ellipsis, so it looks like four. That may be where some people get the idea that there can be more than three. This is more likely to come up in nonfiction when it represents omitted material rather than in fiction.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: dgcasey on August 22, 2019, 05:27:06 AM
On Word, typing three dots causes an autocorrect to three dots with spaces. The spaced version looks more natural to me. However, I've never put a space before or after the ellipsis. My most recent editor added spaces before and after, but no one ever has before.

My use of the ellipse always comes in dialogue. I use it when one person or an event interrupts someone talking. I just finished the first draft of a 90K word novel and I just checked and found I used it eight times, so about once every 11K words and I wouldn't be surprised to see that's an average for me.

"Look, he's a soldier. If he wants to put himself in harm's way, that's his business, but ..."
"But, nothing." she interrupted. "He's not the only one that gets to decide if they can risk something."

"Captain Melling just told us to get ..."
Just then the doors of the lab slammed open as the two soldiers held them and Captain Melling came walking briskly out the door, carrying the purse smoothly.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: JRTomlin on August 22, 2019, 06:21:19 AM
Not that you can't suit yourself, but an ellipsis is normally used to represent dialogue that trails off and is likely to begin again as
"I didn't know that I... I mean, since I left him, I've thought about him all the time."
 

An em dash is usually used to show an abrupt interruption.
"I was going to—"
A shot rang out.

:writethink:
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: Lynn on August 22, 2019, 08:05:44 AM
I'm not a big user of ellipses, but man, I can't stop with the—

:D

I don't use two spaces. I figure if they were meant to be used that way, there'd be no point in the existence of the single space key. ;)

I do seem to remember having read somewhere about double spaces when I was younger and I do seem to remember using them in manuscript format, but I can't even remember when I quit. Probably when I stopped putting my manuscripts in proper manuscript format! I have no use for manuscript format when composing my prose and definitely don't need it for indie publishing my books.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: Kristen.s.walker on August 24, 2019, 11:29:21 AM
After I did a lot of academic writing in school, I was much more formal and 'correct' in my writing. I realized that I was sounding too stiff in my fiction, especially for my chosen audience (YA). I think most YA fiction has a lot of ellipses and things so readers expect them, and it sounds weird without. So I've forced myself to unlearn my academic writing tendencies. Also mostly quit using semicolons, unnecessarily big words, complicated sentences, etc. I still have to go back and edit these things out sometimes.

Technically, the only correct way to use an ellipsis is in a quote when you are indicating that you've eliminated sections of the original text. Some people prefer to format this by placing them in brackets [...] so it's clear that it's not part of the original quote. (Similar to when you add in an omitted word or correction in a quote.) It is also possible to have a period followed by an elipsis at the end of the sentence, so there would be four dots. But I am trying not to be so pedantic about these things anymore.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: idontknowyet on August 24, 2019, 12:34:38 PM
Not that you can't suit yourself, but an ellipsis is normally used to represent dialogue that trails off and is likely to begin again as
"I didn't know that I... I mean, since I left him, I've thought about him all the time."
 

An em dash is usually used to show an abrupt interruption.
"I was going to—"
A shot rang out.

:writethink:

Oh thank you! Did not know this was using … for everything.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: DCM on October 23, 2019, 11:56:46 AM
I will always use double-space between sentences.  I firmly believe that that extra space provides enhanced readability.  I realize I may be in the minority but not one of my eBooks or Paperbacks have suffered from this practice and I have been told that it helps readability.  While a space between words is enough for that briefest of time from one to the next, there should be something (other than a period, question mark or exclamation mark) to signify the separation.  Like I said, I know there will be plenty of people who disagree.  Hell, I'm nearly 70.  Not going to change now.

Also, it is a rule that you can enforce in MS Word, which makes it painless.

DCM
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: Doglover on October 23, 2019, 02:16:54 PM
Perhaps it was the same memo that told everyone you can stick a full stop (period) wherever the hell you like. More and more I am reading stuff that has a full stop right in the middle of the sentence where there should be a comma. It's as though the writer was not sure what to do with a comma, so though a full stop would do. It is currently driving me insane.  :tap
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: notthatamanda on October 23, 2019, 08:12:40 PM
That must have been the memo that messed up the apostrophes too.   :dizzy
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: Betty Blast on October 24, 2019, 12:21:43 AM
Dropping the second space was one of the most difficult habits that I've ever had to break.
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: dgcasey on October 24, 2019, 01:45:38 AM
Dropping the second space was one of the most difficult habits that I've ever had to break.

It took me a couple of weeks.  :HB
Title: Re: TIL you don't put two spaces after a period anymore
Post by: Doglover on October 24, 2019, 03:17:38 PM
Once, during an argument with one of those know it alls on the kdp forum, he insisted that another writer and I must be sock puppets of each other because we both used two spaces after a full stop.

Apart from making him look more of an idiot, it did make me look at everyone else's posts and realise we were alone.