Do you double space?

buddhu · Post by **buddhu** » Sat May 13, 2006 3:24 am

What is right depends on the situation.

When I started out as a writer the prescribed MS format was double line-spacing with wide margins and a double space after each sentence. In most situations now a single space suffices. As for the formatting applied by software, that will vary depending on what program you're using, and the preferences you have set. Word and Quark, for example, each have their quirks.

As for quotes, part of my job now involves a bit of involvement in magazine production and typography. To my mind, nothing looks worse that an article in Times with "inch marks" instead of proper curly quotes.

Cran, your double spaces won't show up because most web clients render multiple consecutive spaces in HTML pages as a single space.

Doug_Tipple · Post by **Doug_Tipple** » Sat May 13, 2006 5:48 am

When I started off to college in 1961, I remember buying a new typewriter to take with me to school. It cost about $100. There was a fellow in my hometown who sold typewriters as a way of making a little extra money.
If I remember correctly, the typewriter was a portable Smith-Corona, and two type faces were available: Pica and Elite. I got the Pica type. Also, being made of steel, the typewriter was heavy, not something that you would want to carry much, unless you were into strength training.

Forty five years later my old typewriter is long gone, and I am typing on a personal computer with a word processor that even lets me know if I am misspelling a word. It's hard to believe that I can insert a word without having to type the whole page over again. Yes, way back then, we were instructed to use two spaces after a sentence, but that was ancient history. The structure of written language is changing, as well. I have a friend who writes me long letters without any kind of sentence structure at all, just a stream of fragments, separated now and then with a space. Sometimes she puts in a period, but it doesn't mean that she has come to an end of a sentence. She puts them in because they are cute or some reasoning like that, I suppose.

harpmaker · Post by **harpmaker** » Sat May 13, 2006 6:55 am

I still have an old manual typewriter stashed in the attic. The kind that if you struck 2 letters at once, you'd have to stop for a moment to separate the bars holding the typeface. Big black thing and weighs a ton. Looks like a prop from a movie from the 30's

The way the language is spoken and written constantly changes. However, old habits die hard, so I continue to click the space bar twice at the end of a sentence.

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Sat May 13, 2006 10:13 am

I heard from somebody that the last typewriter shop in the world recently closed. It was either in Massachusetts or England (I get them mixed up) and had been around for something like 150 years. Of course I think typewriters are pretty useless, but that still makes me sad.

I am amazed at such a high vote turnout. Thanks, everybody!!

Innocent Bystander · Post by **Innocent Bystander** » Sat May 13, 2006 11:50 am

My son has his own laptop, but he still likes to pound on my old Olivetti Lettra 32 from time to time. A design classic.

buddhu · Post by **buddhu** » Sat May 13, 2006 12:39 pm

Cranberry wrote:... It was either in Massachusetts or England (I get them mixed up) ...

DavidT · Post by **DavidT** » Sat May 13, 2006 1:02 pm

FJohnSharp wrote:Plus, he's an oboeist.

I believe that in Ohio, that is valid grounds for stoning.

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Sat May 13, 2006 1:42 pm

buddhu wrote:
Cranberry wrote:... It was either in Massachusetts or England (I get them mixed up) ...

I'm not joking, sadly. One is called "England" and the other is called "New England" and they both look the same on TV.

Lambchop · Post by **Lambchop** » Sat May 13, 2006 5:49 pm

Cranberry wrote:I heard from somebody that the last typewriter shop in the world recently closed.

The Vermont Country Store still sells them. Manual Olivetti's, and they recently added electronic ones!

I love the Vermont Country Store! When you click on a product, it shows you other items it thinks you might enjoy, such as an old-fashioned pencil sharpener, a set of 1950's original TV trays, and one of those original, no-frills black telephones.

Oooo! Dr. Scholl's! And Tangee lipstick!

izzarina · Post by **izzarina** » Sat May 13, 2006 8:46 pm

Lambchop wrote:I love the Vermont Country Store! When you click on a product, it shows you other items it thinks you might enjoy, such as an old-fashioned pencil sharpener, a set of 1950's original TV trays, and one of those original, no-frills black telephones.

Oooo! Dr. Scholl's! And Tangee lipstick!

Oooo!!! I do too! But I've never been to their website (I get the catalog in the mail). I think I need to now. They have such cool stuff.

RonKiley · Post by **RonKiley** » Sat May 13, 2006 9:20 pm

You guys must all be very young. When I was in school I learned to hand set type for our printing press. We had to memorize the job case so that we could set type without needing to look to see which letter was where. It was a great skill which I probably retained for 2 years tops.

Ron

flanum · Post by **flanum** » Sun May 14, 2006 8:29 am

Cranberry wrote:
buddhu wrote:
Cranberry wrote:... It was either in Massachusetts or England (I get them mixed up) ...

I'm not joking, sadly. One is called "England" and the other is called "New England" and they both look the same on TV.

hmmm. thought you didnt watch tv due to religous beliefs???

flanum · Post by **flanum** » Sun May 14, 2006 8:33 am

Cranberry wrote: Innocent Bystander wrote:
Cranberry wrote:
I don't watch television.

Don't be sarky, now, Cran.

I really don't watch television (for religious reasons). I didn't mean that in a sarcastic way. Sorry.

Charlene · Post by **Charlene** » Sun May 14, 2006 11:40 am

I use 2 spaces at the end of a sentence because when I learned to type on a typewriter that's what was required, and old habits die hard. When I took a word processing class when computers first became common, they said use one space, so I tried to remember that. Then when I had a job as a medical transcriptionist, the office wanted two spaces again.

My daughter has been taught to use one space, so now that I'm not doing transcription at home I took off the error checking for single spaces at the end of sentences from our Word program so it won't drive her crazy when she does schoolwork.

And I also thought from the title this was going to be about double spacing the lines of type, not the spaces at the end of sentences. That was also required in the transcription job, so the anal office manager had lots of room to write nasty little notes with her red felt pen. (Can you tell this was not my favorite job?)

I LOVE spell check! And being able to go back and change one word without retyping the whole page! Remember white-out and the old typewriter erasers that looked like a pencil with a brush at the other end? Remember erasing so hard that you tore a hole in the paper and had to redo it all anyway?

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Sun May 14, 2006 11:43 am

flanum wrote:
Cranberry wrote: Innocent Bystander wrote:
Cranberry wrote:
I don't watch television.

Don't be sarky, now, Cran.

I really don't watch television (for religious reasons). I didn't mean that in a sarcastic way. Sorry.

Only for the last couple years. There was a time when I watched television and even watched movies, too. Imagine the horror!

P.S. One of you messed up the quote boxes pretty bad. You have each of us saying things we didn't.

Chiff and Fipple Forums

Do you double space?

Do you put two spaces at the end of a sentence?

Re: Do you double space?