Okay, what's up with the Space Bar Abuse?

[Watser?]

I have been noticing lately that a lot of people here use double spaces after a full stop. I have noticed this in some of the English texts I get for translating too. What's up with that?

[Zehava]

It's the way I was brought up. Single spacers are an abomination. :D


I'm pretty sure it was the way I was taught in school and not something that I've all of a sudden picked up.

[Dingfod]

Tradition. It dates back to the days of manual typewriters.

[livius drusus]

I do that sometimes out of habit. I didn't think it was visible in vB, though.

The full stop is a holdover from when we old timers used to use typewriters. Way back then, the type was monospaced not proportional like it is on computers, so the full stop helped differentiate between the end of a sentence and the end of a word.

[Dingfod]

I still think it makes for an easier read.

[Watser?]

I was just wondering as I have never seen it in Dutch. But then I took typing classes too (on a mechanical typewriter) and they never taught me that.

[Dingfod]

That's OK, everyone hates the Dutch. I know because I saw it in that Austin Powers movie.

[Watser?]

:cryhome:

[curses]

I was taught it by both my mom and my typing class in high school. It's so ingrained that single spacing after the end of the sentence gives me the heebie-jeebies.

[wei yau]

I was taught it by both my mom and my typing class in high school. It's so ingrained that single spacing after the end of the sentence gives me the heebie-jeebies.

As well it should, since single spacing is done only by the most depraved and wretched scum. Take heart in your "heebie-jeebies", it means you have a soul.

[Sock Puppet]

:yeahthat: That was The Way when I learned typing in school, on those Selectric typewriters with the dancing typeface ball. I still prefer it to single-spacing after a full stop. One space just looks wrong, wrong, wrong.

[Dingfod]

This should've been a lop-sided poll.

[Uthgar the Brazen]

I revel in my scummery. I am a vile thing, and am glad for it. All of you suck. Except Watser? Except that he's Dutch, so he still can't hang out with me.

[Sock Puppet]

UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN!

[curses]

Burn the single-spacers!

:mob:


Edit:

(yay! Only 79 posts left till :vbar:!)

[Watser?]

Bah, I have an ocean between me and your lynch mob.

Uthgar is on his own though, not helicoptering him out now.

[Uthgar the Brazen]

You people are so lucky that when I tried to post Molly's soliloquy from Ulysses I got:

The text that you have entered is too long (118737 characters). Please shorten it to 50000 characters long.

[Julie]

I don't understand how people don't double space after a period. It's just the way it is done.

[Sock Puppet]

no no no no no uthgar thinks a stream of consciousness narrative is the same as not spacing twice after a period but it's really different and not the same at all and i still think inri means iron nails ran in and i wonder if uthgar agrees because hes sacrilicious that way and sacrilicious is a funny word and yes i think i will ask him tomorrow yes yes yes yes yes.

[wei yau]

What kills me is that there's been no discussion about the plague that is single spacing.

Oh no, instead it's all Sarah Palin-this and Bristol Palin-that.

What about the issues, man?

It's time to take off our Palin Hats and put on our Kill-the-damned-single-spacers-for-the-good-of-humanity Hats.

[JamesBannon]

I've always used a single space. However, that is the product of the computer age.

[wei yau]

Gotcha, JB.

* wei yau adds JB to "the List"

[Sock Puppet]

I remember when Micro$oft Orifice first began its stranglehold on corporate America, the version of Word at the time mandated single spacing, and treated double spacing after periods as an error. It wasn't until much wailing and gnashing of teeth that later versions relented. So you realize what this means? Double space after periods, or MICROSOFT WILL WIN.

If that doesn't win over the hearts and minds of The People, then The People just, well, suck.

[Zehava]

People.... suck.

No argument from me on that sentiment. :P

[ceptimus]

I double-space. Does it show up though? (this line is double-spaced).
I double-space. Does it show up though? (this line is single-spaced).

ETA: As I thought. HTML doesn't display more than one space. So although you can see your text correctly while you're editing it, once it appears in a thread, it will look as though you only single-spaced.

Single spacing after a comma, and double at the end of a sentence.  That's the way it should be.  I used HTML non-breaking spaces in this paragraph, to force it to format correctly. :)

[Ensign Steve]

I have always done two spaces after periods and colons and one space after commas and semicolons. I have no idea where I picked that up, but reading this thread makes me conclude it must have been in typing class. I still do two spaces in the text box, even though I know the html is going to strip it. I should remap my keyboard to insert an non-breaking space when I type it. :giggles:

I also remember when Word used to mark the two spaces as an error. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth, indeed! :glare:

[Legs]

Old habits die hard. I learned to type on a manual many years ago.

[Stormlight]

From what I understand, double-spaces after a full stop is only used in the colonies. You're quite correct to protest this barbaric practice, Watser! :unnod:

[Dingfod]

We make the rules now. In fact, that's been the case for some time now, since the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor, I think.

[Stormlight]

:lol:

[mickthinks]

It was Ayrabs bombed Pearl Harbour, ya lily-libtards

:unclesam:

[ceptimus]

From what I understand, double-spaces after a full stop is only used in the colonies.
:glare:

[Stormlight]

Now you've done it mick! You called it Pearl Harbour! Pack your bags, mate because you're off to Guantanamo Bay. :faint:

[Watser?]

So it's an Anglo-Saxon thing then?

[Stormlight]

From what I understand, double-spaces after a full stop is only used in the colonies.
:glare:

What? The Brits do it, too? :OMG::unitedkingdom:

[Dingfod]

Besides, it's lily-livered-libtards.

[Watser?]

It's one of those weird Anglo-Saxon things like counting with both hands and feet (in scores) and all kinds of weird measurements like feet and elbows and stuff :unnod:

[godfry n. glad]

Tradition. It dates back to the days of manual typewriters.

:yeahthat:

That's the way I wuz tot.

[ceptimus]

:shrug:

While we're on the topic of full stops (periods) why does American English insist on forcing the full stops inside quotation marks even when they clearly don't belong there?

The traditional convention in American English is for full stops to be included inside the quotation marks, even if they are not part of the quoted sentence.
:sadnana:

[Stormlight]

:shrug:

While we're on the topic of full stops (periods) why does American English insist on forcing the full stops inside quotation marks even when they clearly don't belong there?

The traditional convention in American English is for full stops to be included inside the quotation marks, even if they are not part of the quoted sentence.
:sadnana:

Obviously, that's because Jesus put his full stops inside the quotation marks.

[ceptimus]

French spacing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_spacing)

[Ensign Steve]

:shrug:

While we're on the topic of full stops (periods) why does American English insist on forcing the full stops inside quotation marks even when they clearly don't belong there?

The traditional convention in American English is for full stops to be included inside the quotation marks, even if they are not part of the quoted sentence.
:sadnana:

This makes me more than a little crazy. Style tells me to put them inside the quotes. Logic tells me to leave them out. I can't decide which is more important, so I switch back and forth. And my own inconsistency drives me up the wall.

:twitch:

ETA: Wait. Did you say "American English"? Does that mean the English do it the logical way? If I start putting u's where they don't belong and pronouncing the h in herbs, can I just do it the logical way all the time?

[godfry n. glad]

Damnifino.

I try not to. I try to point out to others that it's not nice to put the full stop for the entire sentence inside the quoted material within the sentence. Y'know, like if it's one of those 'single spacers'.

Of course, my opinion can be summarily dismissed, as I'm an ellipse abuser...

[godfry n. glad]

ETA: Wait. Did you say "American English"? Does that mean the English do it the logical way? If I start putting u's where they don't belong and pronouncing the h in herbs, can I just do it the logical way all the time?

Yeah...when I traveled with a couple of poms who'd resettled in Tasmania, they kept correcting my pronunciation of 'tomato'.

It wasn't until one of them asked for a packet of potato crisps that I asked why they pronounced 'potato' variant from their pronunciation of 'tomato'. Same structure on both the words, merely different initial letters. They should, reasonably, be pronounced very much the same. They didn't; I did.

I got a round of applause from the rest of the bus, all of them being Aussies.

[Ensign Steve]

Same structure on both the words, merely different initial letters. They should, reasonably, be pronounced very much the same.

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, lough and through?
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird,
And dead: it's said like bed, not bead -
For goodness sake don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there's dose and rose and lose -
Just look them up - and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart -
Come, come, I've hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I'd mastered it when I was five!

[ceptimus]

I used to confuse the simpletons at the office by telling them that the correct spelling when referring to the roof of more than one building was rooves.

A horse has one hoof on each leg and four hooves in total: obviously one house has one roof, but two houses have two rooves.

:P

[Sock Puppet]

Bah. Not ALL full stops, just the little ones. Large ones, like ? and !, go inside if they're part of the quote, outside if they're not. T'was taught to me by an English professor at Berkeley. Don't destroy all that is fine and good in the world by telling me it's wrong. Bastards.

[wei yau]

Bah. Not ALL full stops, just the little ones. Large ones, like ? and !, go inside if they're part of the quote, outside if they're not. T'was taught to me by an English professor at Berkeley. Don't destroy all that is fine and good in the world by telling me it's wrong. Bastards.

Damn right!

It's quite obvious that the large full stops are big enough to take care of themselves. But, the poor little period needs the protective embrace of the closing quote.

You know what would happen if the little period wasn't protected by the powerful arms of the quote?

All you Euros would be speaking German, that's what!

[Watser?]

Not French?

[Deadlokd]

This is the first I've heard of double spacing after a full stop. You 'Murkans are crazy!

[Shelli]

:lol: @ this thread

I double space after a period also..Yep..:smugnod:

[Ymir's blood]

I used to double space after a period and nest . outside the quotes, but that was before being raked over the coals by Don Morgan.

[biochemgirl]

Double spacer here too. So does that make me part of the cool crowd? :cool:

[Crumb]

:nope: It's the llama that makes you part of the cool crowd.

[biochemgirl]

I knew it! :giggle:

[Shelli]

:shakellama:

[Julie]

I am NOT an AMERICAN.

Thats like calling a Kiwi a stupid 'mozzie!

;)

[One for Sorrow]

I had never heard of double-spacing after a period until a Nazi TA in my biochemistry class marked just about everyone in the class down for single-spacing on our *first* essay. In biochemistry. Bitch.

Now I'll never double-space, out of protest.

[JoeP]

I   used   to  double-space  after  full  stops.(Periods  are  something  else  altogther.)Then  I  decided  that  life's  too  short  to  worry  about  content  and  presentation  at  the  same  time.On  a  related  note,  has  anyone  noticed  that  chatbot  Steve  Austin  often  has  no  space  at  all  after  a  full  stop?Very  disturbing.

[Stormlight]

I double space after a period also.

Oh, do you now?
:pms:

[Shelli]

I double space after a period also.

Oh, do you now?
:pms::giggle:




I   used   to  double-space  after  full  stops.(Periods  are  something  else  altogther.)Then  I  decided  that  life's  too  short  to  worry  about  content  and  presentation  at  the  same  time.On  a  related  note,  has  anyone  noticed  that  chatbot  Steve  Austin  often  has  no  space  at  all  after  a  full  stop?Very  disturbing.Gah! My eyes! :shakeeyes: