Oh. Wow. I have been set free. I *hate* typing two spaces after a period, but somebody told me I was wrong not to, and told me it would be terrible if editors never read a word I submitted because I violated the two-space rule.
It's become such a habit, though, it will be hard to stop, and I will still do it on my manual typewriter for the reasons the article points out, but THANK YOU for posting this. Wow. Stunned, is I.
While I'm interested in learning how you reached that conclusion, Stephen, you'll be hard-pressed to convince me of its validity.
My bona fides for holding the position I do: I trained as a tyopgrapher, became a journeyman in the International Typographical Union, worked as a typesetter, supervised and trained typesetters, worked in supervisory and management positions in various book and magazine publishing companies, have spoken about typography at various conferences back when I made my living on the production side and not the creative side of publishing, and I've worked on several projects that received awards for typography.
Two spaces after a period is incorrect when using proportional type.
I suspect that every person who took a typing class back in the fifties and sixties is doing it wrong. The teacher taught the future secretaries of the world that it was two spaces after a period.
And Brian is right - I still automatically type in two spaces, it will be difficult to change.
You're right, Sandra. But that was back when we typed on typewriters using monospaced fonts.
We don't do that any more. We use computers with proportional fonts, which means we've gone from typing to typesetting, whether we all realize it or not it or not.
And just as the rules of typing apply to typing, the rules of typography apply to typesetting. Unfortunately, few people understand them well enough to apply them and that's why we see so many instances of double spaces after periods, inch marks used as quotation marks, hyphens and en-dashes used where em-dashes belong, punctuation improperly placed in relation to quotation marks, and on and on and on and on.
Bad typography is one thing that often distinguishes an amateur publication from a professional publication, and is something I often notice before I even read the words. While poor presentation might mask brilliant writing, poor presentation often goes hand-in-hand with poor writing.
7 comments:
Oh. Wow. I have been set free. I *hate* typing two spaces after a period, but somebody told me I was wrong not to, and told me it would be terrible if editors never read a word I submitted because I violated the two-space rule.
It's become such a habit, though, it will be hard to stop, and I will still do it on my manual typewriter for the reasons the article points out, but THANK YOU for posting this. Wow. Stunned, is I.
Hey Michael,
Sorry , but they're wrong.
Stephen
While I'm interested in learning how you reached that conclusion, Stephen, you'll be hard-pressed to convince me of its validity.
My bona fides for holding the position I do: I trained as a tyopgrapher, became a journeyman in the International Typographical Union, worked as a typesetter, supervised and trained typesetters, worked in supervisory and management positions in various book and magazine publishing companies, have spoken about typography at various conferences back when I made my living on the production side and not the creative side of publishing, and I've worked on several projects that received awards for typography.
Two spaces after a period is incorrect when using proportional type.
I suspect that every person who took a typing class back in the fifties and sixties is doing it wrong. The teacher taught the future secretaries of the world that it was two spaces after a period.
And Brian is right - I still automatically type in two spaces, it will be difficult to change.
You're right, Sandra. But that was back when we typed on typewriters using monospaced fonts.
We don't do that any more. We use computers with proportional fonts, which means we've gone from typing to typesetting, whether we all realize it or not it or not.
And just as the rules of typing apply to typing, the rules of typography apply to typesetting. Unfortunately, few people understand them well enough to apply them and that's why we see so many instances of double spaces after periods, inch marks used as quotation marks, hyphens and en-dashes used where em-dashes belong, punctuation improperly placed in relation to quotation marks, and on and on and on and on.
Bad typography is one thing that often distinguishes an amateur publication from a professional publication, and is something I often notice before I even read the words. While poor presentation might mask brilliant writing, poor presentation often goes hand-in-hand with poor writing.
Hey Michael,
All the extra spaces I added between my words was stripped by Blogger!
Stephen
Ah, Stephen, so you tried to nail me with a visual joke and Blogger screwed up the punch line? I hate when that happens.
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