Re: spaces

[Barbara Karst-Sabin <barbara -at- QUOTE -dot- COM>]

Barry Campbell wrote:
>

> People who insist on always using two spaces after a period tend to be
> people who came of age in the typewriter era.
>
> Computers running modern word processing or DTP software bear only a
> superficial resemblance to typewriters.  Don't follow old rules when
> new technology makes them nonsensical.
>

Well, Barry, and anyone else who thinks age is the reason behind
demanding two spaces after a period, )%#_#%#%&_$)( (since I can't swear
on the list).

The two spaces after a period are there for readability.  Ever heard of
it?  Proportional spacing has nothing to do with it, although I realize
an awful lot of people bought that piece of hokum, simply because they
began their careers after typewriters became pretty much obsolete.

Proportional spacing does not distinguish bewteen a period and anything
else.  If you scan a paragraph with single spaces after periods, it
looks like one long sentence.  Likewise, when you read, the lack of that
extra space means you don't get the visual cue that tells you, clearly,
that that particular sentence is at an end.  And the "rest stop" for the
eye that extra space provides, which one needs to plow through a lot of
text without eyestrain, is missing.

A lot of practices from "the typewriter age" (actually, they existed
long before typewriters, printing didn't start with them, you know) came
about, not because of typewriters, but to make printed documents more
readable.  Language is a continually changing thing, and we need to
distinguish between legitimate evolution of the language -- and its
printed representation -- and the bizarre notions of some bean counting
MBA who decided that leaving out that extra space saved time (one less
keystroke, kiddies) and money (why, in 1000 pages of text, or
thereabouts) you could probably save at least one piece of paper!

BJ


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