Goose Chase - $20 by paypal to the first one who finds and posts here...

[Gene]

This has bugged me for a while now and every now and then I go searching for this and haven't been able to find it, so I ask for help and will send $20 by paypal to the first person who posts the reference in this thread containing the answer.

I changed my typing habits to put one space after a period rather than two because of something I read in an issue of PPC Journal. For the longest time, I thought the comment had been made by Richard Nelson, but he denies it. It may therefore have been made by someone else in the journal, but I KNOW :-) it was made in a journal.

As I remember it, the statement made was that using one space rather than two when typing would allow for more (albeit relative small amount of) content on each page since a space is wasted if you put two spaces after a period. I understand the arguments for / against doing this, but that's not my concern here. Where is this comment in the PPC world?

The comment ended (I think) with this question and answer: How do you change your habit from putting two spaces after a period to only putting one space? Practice!


Where do I think this is? I am reasonably sure this is in a PPC Journal from 1980 to 1985 or so. I know that's a lot of material, but that's the best I can do. I **had** thought it was in 1982-1983, but I have not found it yet.

Can anyone help put this nagging thought to rest for me? I have a hot (virtual) $20 waiting to be claimed. :-)

Help!


Winner will be the first one who posts into this thread the Volume, issue number and page upon which that comment can be found... such as V10N2P14 if that is where it was found.

[striegel]

http://www.hpmuseum.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/...ead=165962

I supposed the answer never did appear, huh?

Alan

[Maximilian Hohmann]

The question has been answered already, but just out of curiosity: Where on this planet is it taught that one puts two spaces after a period? I have never heard of that before nor have I ever knowingly seen it (guess I missed the old thread).

[Gene]

(02-14-2018 08:50 PM)striegel Wrote:  http://www.hpmuseum.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/...ead=165962

I supposed the answer never did appear, huh?

Alan

Alan: Correct. It was never answered. Since that time, I bugged Richard on the phone and in person and he denies it. After looking through the Journal and CHHU issues, he appears to have consistently used two spaces after a period, so he probably was not the source...but someone was. Who? When? Ackkk ! :-)

[striegel]

(02-14-2018 08:53 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  The question has been answered already, but just out of curiosity: Where on this planet is it taught that one puts two spaces after a period? I have never heard of that before nor have I ever knowingly seen it (guess I missed the old thread).

My high school typing class in 1975 taught me to always use two spaces after a period and I have continued the habit even to date.

See One space between sentences, which also points to Space Invaders - Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period.

Alan

[jwhsu]

(02-14-2018 08:53 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  The question has been answered already, but just out of curiosity: Where on this planet is it taught that one puts two spaces after a period? I have never heard of that before nor have I ever knowingly seen it (guess I missed the old thread).

The practice came from mechanical and electric typewriters. All letters and punctuation occupied the same width on the page. Two spaces were used after periods to better highlight the end of sentences (try reading a manuscript set in courier. You need the double space to improve the readability of the document). This practice continued when word processors with proportional fonts became available and you didn't need to accentuate the end of the sentence to improve readability. I'm not sure how prevalent the practice is now as I have not seen a typewriter in decades and I'm not sure if they are teaching "use 2 spaces after a period" in typing classes, however, I agree it is wasteful, and, personally, it drives me crazy when I see a document using proportional fonts with double spaces at the ends of sentences.

Jack

[Steve Simpkin]

(02-14-2018 08:53 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  The question has been answered already, but just out of curiosity: Where on this planet is it taught that one puts two spaces after a period? I have never heard of that before nor have I ever knowingly seen it (guess I missed the old thread).

I believe I was taught to use two spaces between sentences in High School typing class in the 1970's (USA). Many years later, I still use two spaces from habit.
The amount of space used between sentences has a long and complicated history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_spacing

"James Felici, author of the Complete Manual of Typography, says that the topic of sentence spacing is "the debate that refuses to die ... In all my years of writing about type, it's still the question I hear most often, and a search of the web will find threads galore on the subject." This subject is still widely debated today."

[Garth Wilson]

(02-14-2018 08:53 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  The question has been answered already, but just out of curiosity: Where on this planet is it taught that one puts two spaces after a period? I have never heard of that before nor have I ever knowingly seen it (guess I missed the old thread).

I think the single space came from programmers at MS and other companies who were too young to have taken the normal two years of high-school typing where we learned standard block format, which requires two spaces between sentences. I've heard the most ridiculous, ignorant arguments, like that typewriters' periods were so tiny you had to have an extra space it order to see it. No, they were huge, because you'd hit the period with the same force you'd hit an M or W, and the period had to be big to prevent punching holes in the ribbon and platen. It causes problems though when they only put one space in, especially if the next sentence starts with a word that's capitalized whether it's the first word in a sentence or not (like someone's name), or less often, with one that is not supposed to be capitalized, like referring to certain labels in programming, because the capital might change the meaning. With only one space between sentences, I've sometimes had to go back and re-read something because it didn't make sense the way I saw it the first time.

[grsbanks]

Punctuation rules vary from one culture to another. I'm 50 years old so I don't consider myself to be among the youngest here, and I was always taught that one space after a full stop (that's what we call a "period" in the UK, "period" usually refers to something that only half the population has to deal with...) was the "rule".

This said, the only place where I received any actual formal training in typing was in France, where one space after the full stop is also the norm. But over there, you also put a space before a colon, semicolon, a question mark or an exclamation mark. As I said, the rules depend on where you are.

I am also the editor of a printed magazine and an electronic newsletter for the GB&I branch of a social/charity organization that exists in about 25 countries worldwide (this is me) and I sometimes have to spend an inordinate amount of time normalizing the punctuation in content that I am sent because I receive stuff with all kinds of standards applied.

[salvomic]

(02-15-2018 09:53 AM)grsbanks Wrote:  This said, the only place where I received any actual formal training in typing was in France, where one space after the full stop is also the norm.

only a space after period (or full stop) also here in Italy, and no space must go first of !?,;:

(02-15-2018 09:53 AM)grsbanks Wrote:  I am also the editor of a printed magazine ... I sometimes have to spend an inordinate amount of time normalizing the punctuation in content that I am sent because I receive stuff with all kinds of standards applied.

I'm also a publisher. We have the same (*great*) problem with some authors that use "too many space" everywhere with no rule, no norm: one, two, more, then again one first comma, then... a mess!

Salvo

[revwillie]

I opened this thread thinking that "goose" was referring to the annunciator triangle that scans back and forth when a HP42s is 'thinking'.

[polbit]

I've never taken a typing class, but the two-space rule was enforced strongly in my high school English in late 80s. It was a habit for me for a while, however it quickly faded with proportional fonts that didn't really show much of a difference.

[toml_12953]

(02-14-2018 08:53 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  The question has been answered already, but just out of curiosity: Where on this planet is it taught that one puts two spaces after a period? I have never heard of that before nor have I ever knowingly seen it (guess I missed the old thread).

In the USA it was always taught to use two spaces. Mechanical typewriters used a monospace font and two spaces made it easier to see the separation of sentences. People in this thread might be interested to read

The Mac is not a Typewriter

by Robin Williams (no, not THAT one!)

[grsbanks]

(02-16-2018 08:47 AM)toml_12953 Wrote:  The Mac is not a Typewriter

Bookmarked!

I am so going to send this to contributors to my magazine who transgress the golden rule...

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello!

(02-16-2018 08:47 AM)toml_12953 Wrote:  The Mac is not a Typewriter

Very interesting, as always after discovering something completely new! I still have to ask my wife (who teaches English at high school/college level) if she has ever heard of that "two space" rule.

I even read the chapter in the book linked above about why it was "necessary" to use two spaces after a sentence when typing on typewriters with monospaced fonts. And I ask myself: Why did this necessity then apply only to monospaced English and not to most other languages. Very strange...

[Gene]

It was typing class at least in the USA that taught the two space rule.


HOWEVER :-) I intended this thread to be about searching the PPC Journal!

haha.

Gene

[Terje Vallestad]

(02-16-2018 02:35 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  Why did this necessity then apply only to monospaced English and not to most other languages. Very strange...

I can’t vouch for other languages, but 2 spaces after full stop punctuation was also taught in Norway in the seventies when I learned touch typing on a typewriter.

Cheers, Terje

[Garth Wilson]

(02-16-2018 08:47 AM)toml_12953 Wrote:  In the USA it was always taught to use two spaces. Mechanical typewriters used a monospace font and two spaces made it easier to see the separation of sentences.

The space on a normal, monospacing typewriter was the same width as M or W. In proportional spacing, the spaces are narrower, meaning there's an even greater need for a second space.

[Paul Berger (Canada)]

(02-16-2018 09:06 PM)Garth Wilson Wrote:  

(02-16-2018 08:47 AM)toml_12953 Wrote:  In the USA it was always taught to use two spaces. Mechanical typewriters used a monospace font and two spaces made it easier to see the separation of sentences.

The space on a normal, monospacing typewriter was the same width as M or W. In proportional spacing, the spaces are narrower, meaning there's an even greater need for a second space.

From what I have read the practice of using two spaces predates typewriters and was commonly used in typesetting. Looking at a book that was printed by the office of my home town weekly in the late 40's it uses double spaces as does any of the images of old newspapers I looked at on line. However looking at the copy of my home town weekly that just arrived today they now use a single space. I too was taught in school (Ontario Public School) that there should be two spaces after a full stop and I still do it without even thinking about it.

Paul.

[martinot]

(02-14-2018 09:55 PM)striegel Wrote:  

(02-14-2018 08:53 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  The question has been answered already, but just out of curiosity: Where on this planet is it taught that one puts two spaces after a period? I have never heard of that before nor have I ever knowingly seen it (guess I missed the old thread).

My high school typing class in 1975 taught me to always use two spaces after a period and I have continued the habit even to date.

See One space between sentences, which also points to Space Invaders - Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period.

Alan

Wow!

This is the first time I have ever heard about people using two spaces after sentences. I have also never seen that in any text.

I wonder if it is an older generation (I am born -68) or possibly only an American thing (I am from Europe)?