Budget cut forces major change in word processing

[Leatherneck]

The resulting shut down was VERY messy, leading to lots of very hostile calls from users, his bosses, him, and at least one call from a very important man with two stars on his shoulder boards.

His contention was that he entered our code just as we had supplied it. After a couple of hours of trouble shooting we finally figured out that he was a complete and utter moron and that our code was fine.

If I ever run across a "two-star...who can enter "code" I'll be stunned. Then I'll run across him again, as that's just too dangerous to allow to live.

TC

[K Frame]

"If I ever run across a "two-star...who can enter "code" I'll be stunned. Then I'll run across him again, as that's just too dangerous to allow to live."

He didn't enter code. The "problem" was escalated up to his level because it shut down the PACAF server and everyone who was using it at the time. He's also friends with our program director, so that was also very likely a reason why he called.

Of course PACAF  immediately faulted over to the AMC server so there was no "down" time, but it was seen as a major issue that required a major response because all four server locations were going to be upgraded in the same way at the same time.

It just turns out the arsehole SA wasn't following the standard protocols and the immediate assumption is that "well, we did what we were supposed to do, it didn't work, it's the contractor's fault!"

[MillCreek]

I have quite honestly not thought of this issue ever.  Starting in eighth grade back in 1974, where touch typing was a required course, I was taught to enter two spaces after a period.  I have done research papers and documents up the wazoo for science undergrad, science grad, legal and business degrees and no one ever mentioned anything.  I write letters, briefs, research memos, policies and procedures and the like in my professional career for 26 years and no one ever mentioned anything. 

So is one space after a period the new accepted standard? 

[Racehorse]

I learned two spaces growing up, but was also informed in college that the standard had changed. I believe most, if not all, of the major style guides now specify one space.

I welcome the change. I always thought it was a pain in the butt to type that extra space. Just one more keystroke that I no longer need.

[Typhoon]

Re: Mike Irwin’s story.  Heh.  Back in the day when I was a Novell NetWare engineer, I sent the remote “engineer” in New York an AUTOEXEC.NCF file for one of his servers.  (AUTOEXEC.NCF serves a similar function as AUTOEXEC.BAT on PCs). 

New York guy copied the file onto the server.  Server didn’t boot.  Guy calls me up at 2am.  “Server’s not booting.”  I asked him what he did.  “Nothing.” You sure?  “Swear to God.”  You SURE?  “Didn’t do nothin’!”  OK, e-mail the file back and I’ll look at it.

So, sitting in the dark at my PC (2 in the DAMNED AM) I fire up my e-mail.  Genius in NY had opened up the file in Word and saved it as a Word doc!

I wonder why AUTOEXEC.NCF.DOC didn’t work…

Idiot.

[BryanP]

I've never heard of double spacing after a sentence.

Double space at the end of a sentence is what I was taught.  That was back in the mid 1980's when I learned to type on an IBM Selectric.  That's probably why I still cling to my IBM Model M keyboard.  It's ingrained to the point that I still put two spaces at the end of a sentence in forums, emails and such.

[Nick1911]

I was taught to double space.

I recall a high school teacher noting that it wasn't required anymore since "word does it automatically".

Well, I didn't type documents in "word".  As such, I double space instead of hoping my word processor will automagically do it for me.

[AZRedhawk44]

I was taught on an IBM electronic typewriter in 1991 to double space after periods.

Then, in 1994, after moving from Minnesota to Washington, I was taught on 386 PC's running WordPerfect 5.1 to double space after periods.

Every paper I ever wrote for college had double spaces between sentences.  My advising prof was a red-pen nazi.  Never a whiff of any frustration over double spaces.

Thorough confusion abounds from me.  Looking at old documents that were hand-written, I see implied "double spaces" at the end of sentences.

Is the Constitution considered "primary" enough a text to set a standard?

Look here:
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/charters_downloads.html

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.<<EXTREMELY LARGE APPARENT DOUBLESPACE HERE>>The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.

Interesting that reading the transcript of the document in electronic format yields only 1 space in that same position, though.

Those fellas back there were very fond of their run-on sentences and tended to make their paragraphs all one large sentence, but in places that they felt a need to add a period, they would increase the amount of space to the next word.  It's quite apparent.

[Hawkmoon]

Apparently, the economy is so bad that we can no longer afford more than one space between sentences.  Let's hope it doesn't cost too much to retrain our thumbs. 

But seriously, why and when did we abandon proper spacing between sentences?  I've been noticing this for years, but I just thought people didn't know what they were doing.  Apparently it's the going thing, though. 

What gives? 

In the old days of typewriters with nothing but Courier type and all letters spaced the same (due to mechanical constraints) regardless of how much space they needed, two spaces after a sentence was necessary to obtain sufficient visual space to confirm that one sentence had ended and another had begun. Books, which were typeset using variable spacing between letters, never added extraneous space at the end of sentences.

Now that computers and word processing almost universally use typeset style fonts with proportional spacing, the extra space is not necessary because the letter kerning takes care of it. We didn't "abandon" proper spacing -- it's just that with typeset, proportional fonts the extra space is not needed and is not proper spacing.

[Hawkmoon]

I was taught to double space after a period as well.  It's about the only grammar rule I remember.  Figures that it was wrong 

That's because it's not a "grammar" rule. It was a typing rule.

Somewhere buried deep in Tools - Options, older versions of Word (or maybe I'm thinking back to WordPerfect) had an option to convert double spaces after periods to single. I'm currently working in Word 2003 and I don't see that option offered. I don't have any boxes with Word 2000 or Word 98 installed, so I can't go looking to see when it changed.

[Perd Hapley]

"Can someone please unwind Mike a little bit?  Yikes."

Can someone please unwind you so that you don't look at every little change as a personal affront and an insult to God and the American way of life? 

Can you not try to understand sarcasm, hyperbole, humor, etc? 

OK, that last bit I took out was a bit harsh.  But Mike, if you insist on reading all this angst or alarmism or curmudgeonly-ness into my posts, you make things a tad more hostile around here than they need to be.  If you can't take my sarcasm with a grain of salt... 

[Zardozimo Oprah Bannedalas]

"I think she said something along the lines that MS Word automatically added the double space after a period. Or something of the kind."

No version of Word I've ever used has done that automatically.

It's possible that it's wrapped into one of the tools or options choices. Well, I just quickly went through all of the options tabs in my copy of Word 2003, and that's not a feature that I can find.

I remembered wrong. This:

Since modern typewriters and virtually ever word processor since the earliest ones have proportional spacing encoded in their controls (mechanical or software), the double space at the end of a sentence is no longer needed.

Is more or less what she said.

[K Frame]

And just how do you know I wasn't being sarcastic in response?

[mtnbkr]

When I was learning to type in the mid 80s, I was taught to double-space at the end of a sentence.  It stuck with me and I do it by habit even today.  It hasn't been an issue and the only time it was mentioned was when I had Mike proofread some stuff for me a few years ago.  I hadn't even heard of "the new standard".

As for spaces and system admin tasks, it has been my experience that extra spaces are generally ignored.  Perl, *nix shell, Windows cmd, Cisco IOS, etc don't seem to care about extra spaces.  The only problem I see cutting/pasting from external sources when entering system commands is capturing "unseen" carriage returns so the command isn't in one line, but two.  I broke a perl script I was working on when I copied a snippet of code from email and pasted it into Vi.  What I thought was Vi wrapping the line because of the terminal screen size was actually a carriage return.  Yup, script didn't run and it took me a while to figure out what was wrong (I expanded the term window and saw that the line wrap didn't go away).

Chris

[Mabs2]

I was taught to use two spaces after a period, and have always done it.  So Fistful isn't the only one. =p

[ilbob]

I seem to recall 2 spaces was once the standard. Can't say that it is any more.

[Doggy Daddy]

Yo, double spacer here too.  Seewhutahmean?

DD

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

You can search and replace your double-spaced periods to single-space?!  Sweet.

Why would you want to?  If you're writing to some predefined standard, then follow the standard.  I've seen standards that expect two spaces, and other standards that expect one.  If you aren't writing to a defined standard, then write however you like.

I agree that two spaces between sentences provides a cleaner look, so I do it. 

I also reserve the right to break any particular grammar rule I want, if I feel it leads to a cleaner, clearer expression of my thoughts.  I have my technical writing class to blame for that habit.  "Clarity above all" was the motto there, and that motto makes sense everywhere except grammar classes.

[Perd Hapley]

If you're writing to some predefined standard, then follow the standard. 

Seriously? :| It doesn't occur to you that a person might double-space out of habit, and have to go back and clean it up later?