Re: Textbox Question


"Mike Williams" <Mike@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uFeAqNHCGHA.140@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> "MikeD" <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:%23qRRRDDCGHA.2704@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>> Afterall, in normal writing, sentences
>> are usually followed by 2 spaces
>
> Is this an "American thing"?
>
> I don't do it (I'm from UK), and neither does Randy (Canada), Frank
> (Australia) or Dag (Norway). Mind you, Rick doesn't do it either, and he's
> from New Jersey. All a bit confusing :-)


No, I don't think it's an "American thing". It's a "formal writing thing".
For casual writing, it's largely overlooked/ignored. But in any kind of
formal writing, 2 spaces following a sentence is, AFAIK, standard and
required. I guess I should have said "formal" instead of "normal". <g>

I was taught this in grade school (or maybe middle school; been too long for
me to remember exactly when). Maybe it's not even taught that way anymore.
Anyway, it's just stuck with me, even though I'm not consistent about it. In
fact, more times than not, when writing newsgroup replies (which I consider
to be a very casual writing style), I usually follow sentences with 1 space.
Ralph might be onto something as far as proportional fonts and all that.
That could very well be why it's not strictly adhered to anymore. But I do
think it's still the proper writing style. It just depends on whether the
style is formal or casual.

Incidentally, I too remember losing points for not using 2 spaces after
sentences in the writing classes I had. I even remember one teacher (this
was in high school, her name was Mrs. Handlin, she was one of the strictest
teachers at my high school; she was also my next-door neighbor) taking 1
point off EVERY time 2 spaces did not follow a sentence. Most teachers just
penalized once for it regardless of how many times it occurred. I remember
having lost 27 points because of that on one paper. After that, I never
again lost a single point for this "infraction". <g>

Just for the heck of it, see what your word processor's grammar settings are
for this. I have Word2003. From the Spelling & Grammar tab of Options, click
the Settings command button under Grammar. The "Spaces required between
sentences:" setting can be set to 1, 2 or don't check. For me (and yes, I am
in the U.S.), it's set to 2, which I assume is the default since I don't
think I've ever changed this (but maybe I did and just don't remember).

--
Mike
Microsoft MVP Visual Basic


.

Loading