Spacing after periods.

[Salacious_Scribe]

So, the Lit. system handles that conversion? Good to know, thanks. There still isn't any real reason to hold to a need that hasn't been a need for twenty years and even when it was needed it was because of what a particular device couldn't do.

So we should stop saying dial a phone since there's no need to dial. Or hang up. Or typing since it's a keyboard. I could go on but you get the point.

If people want to do it who cares.

 

[KeithD]

So we should stop saying dial a phone since there's no need to dial. Or hang up. Or typing since it's a keyboard. I could go on but you get the point.

If people want to do it who cares.

Sorry, no, I don't get whatever point you're making. You still using a dial phone, are you?

I don't care that much. I didn't bring it up. And when Haulover noted that the Literotica system took care of it, I posted it was good to have that information. It remains that it's an unnecessary step someone else has to make after someone who doesn't understand the whys of the issue stubbornly (or in innocent ignorance) does something unnecessary and archaic.

I learned to automatically go from keying two spaces to one when the typewriter era ended. I'm not smarter than anyone else. They can do it too. All they need do is drop the notion that it's all about them.

It sounds to me an awful lot like the mask/no mask response issue. Not the danger of that, of course.

It remains that when a publisher sends me a manuscript to convert to their production system and I have to do a complete pass to get rid of the double spaces (which I did just three days ago), that's an indication of the ignorance, unnecessary stubbornness, and "let the little people clean up after me" attitude of the author.

 

[LexxRuthless]

Damn. This is genuinely the first I've ever seen anyone say that two spaces after the end of a sentence was actually wrong. I had wondered why my spacing didn't look right on the final version of my stories on the site, and went back to make sure I had put two spaces after every sentence.

Now I understand; it's because I'm a dinosaur who didn't know any better.

 

[HeyYoureThatGuy]

Do what you want to do, but it's definitely an excellent example of cultural training. We do certain things because "That's the way we've always done it."

Now, if you calculate the time you add to writing with the double space versus the time it'd take you to stop yourself from using a double space, which works out to be more time?

I'd say go with whatever saves you the most time and effort. Writing can already be hard enough, especially when the words are really flowing.

Another example of cultural training is the keyboard layout.

Although the truth of the stories about why QWERTY keyboard layouts are what they are is a bit muddled, the main reason you hear is that it was to stop typewriters from jamming if you pressed to adjacent keys over and over. I was getting bad carpal tunnel pains in 2005, and I switched to the DVORAK layout, having heard it was faster and less physically stressful since the most commonly used keys are on the home row.

Now, even if the reason for QWERTY layout was something other than jamming typewriters, it's still something that we do just because we've done it for so long, even though it's inefficient. Does that mean you should take the time to relearn how to type? (And you will probably never find a keyboard that is laid out in DVORAK looking down at your keyboard is useless.)

Again it comes down to a calculation of which takes more time. It took me about a whole summer to learn DVORAK, but if you look at all the time I saved over the years since because I don't have to reach for my vowels, I say it worked out.

(Though there is the added bonus of watching people lose their shit when they try to use my computer. The only two keys that are in the same place are A and M.)

 

[KeithD]

Do what you want to do, but it's definitely an excellent example of cultural training. We do certain things because "That's the way we've always done it."

Now, if you calculate the time you add to writing with the double space versus the time it'd take you to stop yourself from using a double space, which works out to be more time?

I'd say go with whatever saves you the most time and effort. Writing can already be hard enough, especially when the words are really flowing.

)

What I'm trying to add in is that the calculation of the effort of whatever you do involves whatever others have to do with your copy as well. If you send your material to publication anywhere (and Literotica is a publishing platform), whatever you do has an impact on what they have to do with it to serve your desire to have it published. Having to take out spaces is no different than if you'd delivered your copy with an ampersand after every vowel.

To be published the two spaces after terminal punctuation will be truncated to one. That isn't a zero-based operation once the two spaces have been provided. The process-friendly solution is not to provide the two spaces to begin with. That's what saves the process, not just the author, the most time and effort. The question is whether the author will be sensitive to anyone's time/effort/needs but her/his own once he/she is aware that copy doesn't go into print with two spaces behind terminal punctuation--and never did.

 

[Bramblethorn]

What spacing do you use? Do you think my two spaces matter?
They seemingly don't here but if I was to try to get one of my novels published, do you think it would matter?

I was taught to double-space after a period, but I think that advice was obsolete by the time I got it. Somebody pointed this out a few years later and I stopped doing it. I don't often see double-space now, though some of that will be autocorrect and HTML hiding it.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I was taught to double-space after a period, but I think that advice was obsolete by the time I got it. Somebody pointed this out a few years later and I stopped doing it. I don't often see double-space now, though some of that will be autocorrect and HTML hiding it.

My eye is trained in reverse now. A double space jumps of a page, and it "bugs" me, but not really.

Find space space Replace space Replace All, repeated twice, is a standard tidy up edit for me now.

 

[Jada59]

Damn. This is genuinely the first I've ever seen anyone say that two spaces after the end of a sentence was actually wrong. I had wondered why my spacing didn't look right on the final version of my stories on the site, and went back to make sure I had put two spaces after every sentence.

Now I understand; it's because I'm a dinosaur who didn't know any better.

I only know because my ex bought a keyboarding program and it kept dinging me for errors.

 

[Jada59]

My eye is trained in reverse now. A double space jumps of a page, and it "bugs" me, but not really.

Find space space Replace space Replace All, repeated twice, is a standard tidy up edit for me now.

Thanks!

 

[colddiesel]

When I was young, men didn't type, that's what wimmen were for. It was something they did between leaving school and having kids.

Exits ever so quietly through the side door.

But as you are talking about periods, before WWII most British employers gave their female employees an extra day off each month - that disappeared under pressure from war work.

 

[Jada59]

When I was young, men didn't type, that's what wimmen were for. It was something they did between leaving school and having kids.

Exits ever so quietly through the side door.

But as you are talking about periods, before WWII most British employers gave their female employees an extra day off each month - that disappeared under pressure from war work.

Yep. I didn't want to take a typing class but my dad insisted on it. I also ran a switch board. Not long after that, secretaries and switchboard operators were no longer career choices.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

What I'm trying to add in is that the calculation of the effort of whatever you do involves whatever others have to do with your copy as well. If you send your material to publication anywhere (and Literotica is a publishing platform), whatever you do has an impact on what they have to do with it to serve your desire to have it published. Having to take out spaces is no different than if you'd delivered your copy with an ampersand after every vowel.

To be published the two spaces after terminal punctuation will be truncated to one. That isn't a zero-based operation once the two spaces have been provided. The process-friendly solution is not to provide the two spaces to begin with. That's what saves the process, not just the author, the most time and effort. The question is whether the author will be sensitive to anyone's time/effort/needs but her/his own once he/she is aware that copy doesn't go into print with two spaces behind terminal punctuation--and never did.

I'm reminded of the extra editing I had to do before I started downloading Word on my phones and typed with basic formatting apps,like a phones notepad and copy/paste to a sites html based text box, to see things like, "don'#&%t" versus "don't". Less editing work is a good thing, even if somebody else is editing it.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

My dad sent me on a typing course in case I'd failed all my GCSEs, but also advised I never let anyone at work know I could.
It's the only time I used a typewriter in earnest - was already using word processors albeit not WYSIWYG ones - so the tutors did say that while on their typewriters to use two full stops at the end of sentences, in 'the real world' only to use one and the word processor would take care of it.

Around the same time my dad and colleagues all had their secretaries at work removed and each man was expected.to type themselves, and was.presented with a large dictionary. He dumped.the dictionary on teenage me and was very nice to the one remaining departmental secretary so she would still do work for him.

 

[KeithD]

The most useful high school class to me later in life was typing.

 

[Bramblethorn]

The most useful high school class to me later in life was typing.

We didn't get taught it in school, but my parents got me a computer course on touch-typing (back in the days of 5 1/4" floppies) and it was one of the best time investments I've ever made.

 

[KeithD]

We didn't get taught it in school, but my parents got me a computer course on touch-typing (back in the days of 5 1/4" floppies) and it was one of the best time investments I've ever made.

I don't think that a writer who has to hunt and peck their work has any idea how freeing it is to be able to touch-type key with all fingers and without having to look at the keyboard.

Similarly, I don't think that those coming into keying creative writing only in the computer age have full appreciation for how computers freed a writer from the typewriter and manual erase (or the pen/pencil on paper, although some writers claim they have to be that close to the composition) in letting their thoughts get preserved as quickly as they come to mind (and the writing moved around, as needed--and duplicated).

My first six novels had to be typed on a typewriter, corrected in review by hand, typed again on a typewriter, edited by someone else by hand, typed again on a typewriter, trying to cover typing mistakes with White Out, and then all additional copies needed had to be Xeroxed, page by page, standing at the machine.

 

[PennameWombat]

The most useful high school class to me later in life was typing.

I attended high school in the US in the second half of the 1970s (yeah, you can hear the bones creak.) My dad, a WWII vet, told me "learn to type, the Army always needs clerks."

In a class of just over thirty, two of us were boys. Not that those odds helped me get dates.

I was, and still am, an excellent touch typist (did 65+ WPM back in tests.) It ended up strangely useful in my career in computer programming. But never seen the need to switch away from a QWERTY keyboard.

<snip>
I learned to automatically go from keying two spaces to one when the typewriter era ended. I'm not smarter than anyone else. They can do it too. All they need do is drop the notion that it's all about them.
<snip>

Same. I may have been helped by doing so much typing using programming languages but I found the "hit the space bar once all the time" an easy transition, whether between words or at the end of the sentence. And yes, I think knowing the keyboard was a computer, not a typewriter, likely helped the brain switch.

 

[MrZeno]

I’m from the two-spaces after a period camp. It’s old habit and I am not changing now.

 

[Sweet_Lara]

One space. Always. That's how the cool kids do it.

 

[Haulover]

I’m from the two-spaces after a period camp. It’s old habit and I am not changing now.

Same here.

I find it helps each sentence stand out more clearly.

In business correspondence and documentation (which absorb a large percent of my working life ) clarity and "easy-to-read" are critical. The double-space, short paragraphs, and lots of white space allow my business colleagues and clients to scan my correspondence and documentation quickly and easily.

So those habits naturally carry over into my personal writing.

 

[KeithD]

Same here.

I find it helps each sentence stand out more clearly.

Are you missing the point that you'll only get that in what you directly provide from your own copy machine? Print doesn't do this. It never has. What you send to Literotica doesn't do this. Anything you put through an experienced editor or a publication process won't do this. You are making someone else clean up after you. It doesn't take much effort to do that, no. But it's you stubbornly adding to the work of anyone following you to get that into print--including here at Literotica. Literotica does not publish your work with two spaces following terminal punctuation.

 

[PennameWombat]

Same here.

I find it helps each sentence stand out more clearly.

In business correspondence and documentation (which absorb a large percent of my working life ) clarity and "easy-to-read" are critical. The double-space, short paragraphs, and lots of white space allow my business colleagues and clients to scan my correspondence and documentation quickly and easily.

So those habits naturally carry over into my personal writing.

I shouldn’t reply but... Email and electronic comms has been central to my career since years began with ‘1,’ ‘9’ and ‘8.’

Concise sentences? Check. Appropriate use of paragraphs? Check.

Double spaces after periods? Not used those since those 1-9-8 years.

Single spaces after periods is the last thing to blame on people’s inability to understand written communication. This article (from 2013) does posit some differences of comprehension on screens versus paper, but single spacing doesn’t seem involved (and the article uses single spaces): Reading on Paper or Screens.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

I shouldn’t reply but... Email and electronic comms has been central to my career since years began with ‘1,’ ‘9’ and ‘8.’

Concise sentences? Check. Appropriate use of paragraphs? Check.

Double spaces after periods? Not used those since those 1-9-8 years.

Single spaces after periods is the last thing to blame on people’s inability to understand written communication. This article (from 2013) does posit some differences of comprehension on screens versus paper, but single spacing doesn’t seem involved (and the article uses single spaces): Reading on Paper or Screens.

So you wanted to make the point that he's out of date? It's been well established that none of this matters here. When a story (or a post) shows up on the site, it will have one space no matter how many a person types in. If a person wants to publish something in print, it's a simple matter to find and replace the double spaces.

As far as business writing goes, the variety of responses on this thread should make it clear that when it comes to business writing, plenty of people will look at single spaces after a period as being incorrect, just as plenty will view it the opposite way. Some professions are particularly slow to adopt new style changes, and in those professions, no matter what a style guide says, people will be expecting two spaces. Other professions adopt new styles much more quickly. I think each person is in the best position to figure out what's best in their job.

As far as Lit goes, it just doesn't matter.

 

[Haulover]

Are you missing the point that you'll only get that in what you directly provide from your own copy machine? Print doesn't do this. It never has. What you send to Literotica doesn't do this. Anything you put through an experienced editor or a publication process won't do this. You are making someone else clean up after you. It doesn't take much effort to do that, no. But it's you stubbornly adding to the work of anyone following you to get that into print--including here at Literotica. Literotica does not publish your work with two spaces following terminal punctuation.

https://www.progressiveears.org/forum/images/smilies/roll.gif Scroll up and read my previous posts.

Or don't - because this summarizes it:

So you wanted to make the point that he's out of date? It's been well established that none of this matters here. When a story (or a post) shows up on the site, it will have one space no matter how many a person types in. If a person wants to publish something in print, it's a simple matter to find and replace the double spaces.

As far as business writing goes, the variety of responses on this thread should make it clear that when it comes to business writing, plenty of people will look at single spaces after a period as being incorrect, just as plenty will view it the opposite way. Some professions are particularly slow to adopt new style changes, and in those professions, no matter what a style guide says, people will be expecting two spaces. Other professions adopt new styles much more quickly. I think each person is in the best position to figure out what's best in their job.

As far as Lit goes, it just doesn't matter.

Nicely summed up, Vix.

In the case of my business writing, I choose to use the double-space, short sentences and paragraphs, and lots of white space because in the nature of my work, and knowing my audience, that is effective.

Lit is different.

And published works on hard copy and kindle are different again.

No single set of rules applies to all written work.

 

[KeithD]

Yes, seeing as how Lit. is going to publish with only one space after terminal punctuation and you now know that if you didn't realize it before, I think you both are exhibiting "let the little people clean up after me" attitudes with your responses. *shrug*