Double space now an error.

[Vladd67]

Microsoft Word now flags double spaces as errors – The Passive Voice

www.thepassivevoice.com

The evolution of writing continues?

 

[.matthew.]

It's what I've always been taught anyway. Plus it annoys me when programs don't flag that up (as sometimes it happens by accident). It should (like most words) have the option to add to dictionary for those that want to use it though.

The more important change needing to be made is . after ) because .) looks like an emoji and it's so annoying...

 

[-K2-]

Personally, from an aesthetics viewpoint, I prefer:
* Double spaces at the end of a sentence.
* Indented first lines of a paragraph.
* A blank line between paragraphs.
* Sans-serif fonts.
etc..

Bluntly, such formatting looks better. It establishes easily recognizable breaks and extends a pause in reading which--for me--makes what you just read sink in a little deeper. I've read arguments of: it disrupts the flow too much, extending the pause too long; yet those points I also see argued by 'speed readers' who want to race through whatever they're reading as fast as possible (as though a wall of text, devoid of line breaks and punctuation would suit them just fine). If someone wants to simply get through a story as fast as possible, I have a grand suggestion. Close the book and go outside.

IMO--yes, my uneducated opinion--various types of blank space applied through formatting work very much like another form of punctuation. They make you pause a little longer, end points and portions with finality, and prepare you for something new. Anyone is welcome to argue to the contrary, the day they eliminate the third of a page space at the beginning of a new chapter and the sometimes vast blank page at the end of a chapter. Lets not forget the blank pages in front-matter.

Word>clause>sentence>>start of paragraph>>>>between paragraphs>>>>>>between chapters>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>you get my point.

In this case, a sentence is a whole thought, MORE than a single word or clause, yet not as complete/in detail as a paragraph (hence the application of indentation and a line break).

Some rules seem to be vehemently touted by prima-donnas intent on impressing upon everyone else their own importance and knowledge. I'll concede, as I've learned--of late 'here' in particular--many rules have solid reasoning behind them. However, some smack all too much of: because that's the rule; because that's what I believe/want; because it saves paper...

K2

 

[.matthew.]

Personally, from an aesthetics viewpoint, I prefer:
* Double spaces at the end of a sentence.
* Indented first lines of a paragraph.
* A blank line between paragraphs.
* Sans-serif fonts.

So just a ton of space?

I don't see the point of a double space after a full stop because as the article mentioned, it's a holdover from the fonts on typewriters. The single space is more than clear, especially if you consider the full stop is actually just a tiny dot that sits at the very bottom of the line making it look double spaced even if you miss the full stop (which I don't think I ever had). On top of that, the next sentence also begins with capitalisation so super obvious.

I love indented lines on a paragraph, I reformat all my ebooks to have those. They are necessary when removing the blank line between paragraphs (so you're not flicking pages so fast). They make it very clear.

Blank line between paragraphs I don't agree with. I use them here (or anywhere I can't indent the line) but in fiction I prefer blank lines to be scene breaks.

I'm not too fussed either way by serifs really... Although... having just checked my standard fonts it appears I read with serif fonts, and write with sans. Interesting there. Perhaps the sans-serif is easier to parse for errors or something?

 

[Astro Pen]

Personally, from an aesthetics viewpoint, I prefer:
* Double spaces at the end of a sentence.
* Indented first lines of a paragraph.
* A blank line between paragraphs.
* Sans-serif fonts.
etc..
K2

I had someone recently demand end of sentence double spaces on a submission. I refused because of her general prima-donna attitude. I was told by a friend that is was a hangover from typewriter days with their uniform letter spacing. With modern kerning it is unnecessary. If you like it fine though

A agree with your other preferences, especially sans-serif. Times New Roman looks positively pre-war to my eye, and objective testing shows no readability advantage to serif despite the popular belief. Though I admit paperbacks in sans don't feel right but I think that is just a lifetime of reading serif books.

 

[-K2-]

So just a ton of space?

No, more like a 'f***-ton' of space. Let's be precise in our measurements

In any case in response to both of you, I still prefer a double space for the reason I stated (in anti-prima-donna, pretentious fashion ). A sentence is more than a word or clause, so, deserves more space. As to the line break between paragraphs, indent or no, again it encapsulates the point of having paragraphs in the first place (my opinion).

K2

 

[.matthew.]

I had someone recently demand end of sentence double spaces on a submission. I refused because of her general prima-donna attitude. I was told by a friend that is was a hangover from typewriter days with their uniform letter spacing. With modern kerning it is unnecessary. If you like it fine though

That got me thinking about how it could be switched between them, and I suppose find and replace ". " with ". " would work pretty easily, so it's not as big a change up as I initially thought. But yea, f*** prima-donna's .

On a side note: I'm giving you a like, not because of the content of the post, but because even though you quoted the same part as I did, you shifted his sign-off to keep it in there .

One of my favourite things about ereaders is the customisation of text to suit your own preferences. You do you, K2.

 

[The Judge]

I always type with double spaces at the end of a sentence. I never learned to type on an old typewriter so it's not a hang over from that, it's just something that to me looks right -- it gives each sentence room to breathe. With some fonts, a single space makes the text look cramped and parsimonious, and can be harder to read.

It is easy to change from one to another with "find and replace" if necessary for a publisher's requirements -- I've been doing it for the last 16 months or so. Though it's necessary to remember not only all the full stops at the end of sentences, but also all the quotation, exclamation and question marks, so even in a short story it takes a few minutes to get it done.

 

[Pyan]

One of my favourite things about ereaders is the customisation of text to suit your own preferences. You do you, K2.

Yes, I tend to hop around between Baskerville, Bookerly and Palatino on the Kindle - it depends on the original transfer to the ereader, and also, oddly enough, to the subject and the age of the original book. At present, I'm working my way through Ngaio Marsh's Inspector Alleyn crime novels, and I've got it set to Palatino, because they look right to me in that font, whereas I reread Dorothy L Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey books, set 20-30 years earlier, in Baskerville.
I don't like san-serif fonts in a book at all - the only reason I don't use a serif font here is because it resets when you log off, and I can't be faffed to reset it every time...

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

Spaces are a sore point with me right now. I've just finished editing an anthology of 45 or so pieces of work from maybe 42 writers. They varied from pro writers who teach creative writing (and oddly enough, one of these had the most errors of almost anyone in their work) all the way through prize-winning writers, to complete novices who'd not only never submitted their work before but some had never even let others read it!

Double spacing after sentences, I can handle. This particular publisher wanted single, and a find and replace in MS Word quickly sorted that, but it's the writers who randomly put double, triple and even quadruple spaces between words, never mind sentences! Have you any idea how hard it becomes to spot these after the first page? I was seeing double and had a bad headache. I don't know how @TheDustyZebra copes...

And while I'm on a roll, I'd like to rant about double vs single quotation marks. I've read a number of opinions on which should be used when, but found myself well confused. Some publishers seem to want double, some single, some don't care either way. So, I use double quotation marks for everything I write (unless it's a quote within a quote, when I may use singles). This means I can easily use Find and Replace to turn them all into singles (I use straight quotes, not smart quotes, too) if the publisher requires. That's easy, but have you ever tried it for turning singles into doubles? Nightmare! The Find and Replace function tries to turn every single apostraphe into double quotes. There's probably a way around that, but I haven't found it yet.

Edit: @The Judge has already pointed out the use of Find and Replace. Our posts must have crossed over!

Edit 2: Another rant. Must be a day for it. People who use tabs to indent the first lines of their paragraphs instead of setting up a first line indent from the beginning. Or, believe it or not, their spacebar! Nothing makes me crosser. I'll probably think of something else that does make me crosser in a minute.

 

[HareBrain]

It is easy to change from one to another with "find and replace" if necessary for a publisher's requirements -- I've been doing it for the last 16 months or so. Though it's necessary to remember not only all the full stops at the end of sentences, but also all the quotation, exclamation and question marks, so even in a short story it takes a few minutes to get it done.

Why not just find/replace two spaces with one, and ignore previous punctuation? When would you need to keep a double space?

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

Why not just find/replace two spaces with one, and ignore previous punctuation? When would you need to keep a double space?

That's what I do.

 

[The Judge]

I never thought of that! For some reason I just assumed it would only work if the box had something physically typed in there. Well, that's saved me a few minutes a month for the rest of the year!

 

[HareBrain]

Well, that's saved me a few minutes a month for the rest of the year!

Use them well!

 

[Astro Pen]

And while I'm on a roll, I'd like to rant about double vs single quotation marks. I've read a number of opinions on which should be used when, but found myself well confused. Some publishers seem to want double, some single, some don't care either way. So, I use double quotation marks for everything I write (unless it's a quote within a quote, when I may use singles). This means I can easily use Find and Replace to turn them all into singles (I use straight quotes, not smart quotes, too) if the publisher requires. That's easy, but have you ever tried it for turning singles into doubles? Nightmare! The Find and Replace function tries to turn every single apostraphe into double quotes. There's probably a way around that, but I haven't found it yet.

Funnily enough my very first thread start, when I joined here in January, was on that issue.

A thought on quotation marks

I just received a request to reformat one of my manuscripts for UK single speech marks. This is relatively easy to do as a 'select all' replace in word because I always write using the US double quotes and I recommend you do the same. With the exception of rare quotes within quotes it is a...

www.sffchronicles.com

 

[Biskit]

Double spacing after sentences, I can handle. This particular publisher wanted single, and a find and replace in MS Word quickly sorted that, but it's the writers who randomly put double, triple and even quadruple spaces between words, never mind sentences! Have you any idea how hard it becomes to spot these after the first page? I was seeing double and had a bad headache. I don't know how @TheDustyZebra copes...

I'm terrible for doing that. I'm a solid two-spacer which the Biskitetta used to insist on decades ago, and now complains about because she's caught up with the modern world. Sadly, due to general cack-handedness, some of my two-spaces end up missing a space, but I make up for that by tacking them on elsewhere at random. At the end of the whole prepping-a-manuscript, I do major search/replace operations to clean everything up. A simple replace-all swapping double- for single-space, repeated until it says it can't find anything to change.

That's easy, but have you ever tried it for turning singles into doubles? Nightmare! The Find and Replace function tries to turn every single apostraphe into double quotes. There's probably a way around that, but I haven't found it yet.

With my IT consultant hat on, It's called "regular expressions". Most modern wordprocessors support them in some sort of advanced mode on search/replace, and they allow incredibly sophisticated processing, combined with the readability and intuitive simplicity of quantum theory mathematics. Fortunately, whenever I'm trying to do that sort of thing, a bit of googling for how to replace X with Y except when there's a Z in the month usually finds a whole slew of answers that someone else has figured out and probably spent hours of screaming frustration knocking the kinks out of.

 

[Biskit]

Funnily enough my very first thread start, when I joined here in January, was on that issue.

A thought on quotation marks

I just received a request to reformat one of my manuscripts for UK single speech marks. This is relatively easy to do as a 'select all' replace in word because I always write using the US double quotes and I recommend you do the same. With the exception of rare quotes within quotes it is a...

www.sffchronicles.com

The really perverse thing is that whilst UK publishers have this thing for the single-quote, I was taught at school to use double-quote. My head automatically sorts it out when reading, but I really can't switch to typing them.
That said, what idiot designed the apostrophe to look exactly like a stray single-quote?

 

[.matthew.]

And while I'm on a roll, I'd like to rant about double vs single quotation marks. I've read a number of opinions on which should be used when, but found myself well confused. Some publishers seem to want double, some single, some don't care either way. So, I use double quotation marks for everything I write (unless it's a quote within a quote, when I may use singles). This means I can easily use Find and Replace to turn them all into singles (I use straight quotes, not smart quotes, too) if the publisher requires. That's easy, but have you ever tried it for turning singles into doubles? Nightmare! The Find and Replace function tries to turn every single apostraphe into double quotes. There's probably a way around that, but I haven't found it yet.

I'm in the UK and the standard for published works here is the single quote, and I don't mind it when I'm reading exactly but I definitely prefer the double quote for the reason below

I never thought of that! For some reason I just assumed it would only work if the box had something physically typed in there. Well, that's saved me a few minutes a month for the rest of the year!

Just be careful not to do that in reverse or you'll end up with double spacing between every word...

The really perverse thing is that whilst UK publishers have this thing for the single-quote, I was taught at school to use double-quote. My head automatically sorts it out when reading, but I really can't switch to typing them.
That said, what idiot designed the apostrophe to look exactly like a stray single-quote?

Ditto, which is weird. Normally I'm all for UK over US English, but in this case I prefer the double quote because of the apostrophes (especially in cases of quotes that end in blahblah's because it looks so messed up with the 's' like that.

 

[HareBrain]

The really perverse thing is that whilst UK publishers have this thing for the single-quote, I was taught at school to use double-quote.

I believe UK publishers switched to single quote in WWII to save paper and ink.

I was also taught to use double at school, and still use it when writing long-hand.

 

[-K2-]

We use double quotes in Uhmerica cuz everthing we has to say am twice as gud

K2