What were the good old days you might ask?
The days when you put TWO SPACES between sentences when you typed them on a typewriter on a word processor.
Sometime in the last year, Blogger has decided to go all one-space on me. Which is fine. Except it is not fine because I keep getting these off-kilter lines in my published posts. (Do you see that?) And because it is one of about, oh let's say, TWO things that I am obssessive about, I have to go back and fix them and then republish. I have to.
Arghhh!!! How am I supposed to work against years and years of punctuation indoctrination?
What's next? no capitals at the beginning of sentences? anything goes sentence enders; are we to become an ee cummings world/
The madness has got to stop.
8 comments:
And your comment link has disappeared. I had to move my mouse around your post to find the link...never mind, the page just turned white and the link became visible.
Yes, yes, yes!! I knew it wasn't my imagination.
Also raised in "the good old" days, I instinctively put two spaces after a period only to have blogger delete the second space. Drives me nuts.
We should call up the Blogger team's English teachers in protest.
Yeah, I wondered about that. I asked someone and was told that 2 spaces after sentences was "old school". No caps at beginning of sentences? guilty. Incomplete or run on sentences? Also guilty.
Can we get away with it if we call it poetic license?
Also - the comma before and in a list of things:
Oranges, apples, and bananas v.s oranges, apples and bananas
I think the first is correct, but the second now is also correct... And I am not that old!
the serial comma is sometimes optional in American punctuation.
Single space post sentence-ending punctuation has been the standard for over a decade, my friend.
Grammar rules are updated frequently, hence the constant re-edition of editorial style guides. ;)
We had annual editorial summits to discuss what and how to implement new style standards.
In fact, I complain bitterly about people who submit Word files with smart quotes and double-spaces between sentences, not to mention (OMG) using the space bar to create indents. UGH
O
M
G
<-- dealing in the trauma
I'm with you, sister! Two spaces after ending punctuation. Always.
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