Spaces in between commas and letters
Discussion
I got a letter from a solicitor last week with spaces all over the place! Sentences with spaces before punctuation .But not after. Double spacing between some words but not others in the same sentence.
The content of the letter was equally poor, and was returned with red pen corrections as appropriate.
The content of the letter was equally poor, and was returned with red pen corrections as appropriate.
roadsmash said:
I am fascinated by the use of extra spaces between commas, letters and full stops.
Tends to be used by the older generation in texts, emails, on forums etc. Very commonplace here on PH.
What gives?!
Mostly it's because people are posting from their phones which have crap keyboards, but also I think the fonts used these days sometimes make text look crowded.Tends to be used by the older generation in texts, emails, on forums etc. Very commonplace here on PH.
What gives?!
Opel-GT said:
OK. It's not generally accepted then. 
Sometimes when I see a poorly written post on a forum I wonder whether the poster ever reads books or newspapers or magazines. Surely they would pick up good habits and notice how a sentence should be formed, or where or where not to use a space if they did. I guess that many people, perhaps most, just don’t care.
Obviously these things don’t matter at all, but using correct grammar takes very little effort.
Obviously these things don’t matter at all, but using correct grammar takes very little effort.
In the olden days of typewriters, each character took up the same space on the horizontal plane with the exception of punctuation marks which normally took up half the width of a character. When typing a letter, there was no need to add an additional space.
However, typesetters had to cast-off copy to work out how many lines of what size font would be needed to fill a space on a page in a newspaper, book or magazine. Casting off involved counting the number of characters in a given piece of text. This would be done by counting the characters along the shortest line and the drawing a vertical pencil line touching the shortest line then counting the additional character for each of the other lines. You knew how many were in the shortest line so you would just add up the extra characters over that for each line to give you the total number of characters in the piece. With this, you could then calculate the lines needed for any given font in any given size (using a Linotype guide and pica-em ruler)
But with punctuation marks, these could throw the calculations out so typists were encouraged to add an extra space to accommodate this on the basis of it's easier to manage slightly less text than slightly more.
My first job in advertising was casting-off copy (1983), I've still got the kit and could probably still do it.
However, typesetters had to cast-off copy to work out how many lines of what size font would be needed to fill a space on a page in a newspaper, book or magazine. Casting off involved counting the number of characters in a given piece of text. This would be done by counting the characters along the shortest line and the drawing a vertical pencil line touching the shortest line then counting the additional character for each of the other lines. You knew how many were in the shortest line so you would just add up the extra characters over that for each line to give you the total number of characters in the piece. With this, you could then calculate the lines needed for any given font in any given size (using a Linotype guide and pica-em ruler)
But with punctuation marks, these could throw the calculations out so typists were encouraged to add an extra space to accommodate this on the basis of it's easier to manage slightly less text than slightly more.
My first job in advertising was casting-off copy (1983), I've still got the kit and could probably still do it.
Typewriters have a lot to answer for.
Bad typewriter habits
Bad typewriter habits
Edited by B17NNS on Thursday 20th June 22:51
desolate said:
Were you taught to type and extra space but write only one?
I was taught to use a typewriter at school but Ll I cN remember is that the (female) teacher smoked small cigars.
My sister (two years older) did her RSA. It wasn't offered to me as a boy, sadly, as touch-typing would've been really useful in my, now, career. I was taught to use a typewriter at school but Ll I cN remember is that the (female) teacher smoked small cigars.
She did, and still does, correct me on faithfully/sincerely and full blocked open format.
StevieBee said:
In the olden days of typewriters, each character took up the same space on the horizontal plane with the exception of punctuation marks which normally took up half the width of a character. When typing a letter, there was no need to add an additional space.
However, typesetters had to cast-off copy to work out how many lines of what size font would be needed to fill a space on a page in a newspaper, book or magazine. Casting off involved counting the number of characters in a given piece of text. This would be done by counting the characters along the shortest line and the drawing a vertical pencil line touching the shortest line then counting the additional character for each of the other lines. You knew how many were in the shortest line so you would just add up the extra characters over that for each line to give you the total number of characters in the piece. With this, you could then calculate the lines needed for any given font in any given size (using a Linotype guide and pica-em ruler)
But with punctuation marks, these could throw the calculations out so typists were encouraged to add an extra space to accommodate this on the basis of it's easier to manage slightly less text than slightly more.
My first job in advertising was casting-off copy (1983), I've still got the kit and could probably still do it.
Good post However, typesetters had to cast-off copy to work out how many lines of what size font would be needed to fill a space on a page in a newspaper, book or magazine. Casting off involved counting the number of characters in a given piece of text. This would be done by counting the characters along the shortest line and the drawing a vertical pencil line touching the shortest line then counting the additional character for each of the other lines. You knew how many were in the shortest line so you would just add up the extra characters over that for each line to give you the total number of characters in the piece. With this, you could then calculate the lines needed for any given font in any given size (using a Linotype guide and pica-em ruler)
But with punctuation marks, these could throw the calculations out so typists were encouraged to add an extra space to accommodate this on the basis of it's easier to manage slightly less text than slightly more.
My first job in advertising was casting-off copy (1983), I've still got the kit and could probably still do it.
Thanks
fishermanpaul said:
My sister (two years older) did her RSA. It wasn't offered to me as a boy, sadly, as touch-typing would've been really useful in my, now, career.
She did, and still does, correct me on faithfully/sincerely and full blocked open format.
I suppose my question is who taught you to leave 2 spaces after a full stop?She did, and still does, correct me on faithfully/sincerely and full blocked open format.
I was never taught to do so in my English lessons.
(I may have forgotten if I was taught to do so on a typewriter, but that wouldn't be relevant now anyway)
fishermanpaul said:
My sister (two years older) did her RSA. It wasn't offered to me as a boy, sadly, as touch-typing would've been really useful in my, now, career.
She did, and still does, correct me on faithfully/sincerely and full blocked open format.
Touch typing is one of the skills I can amaze the old caveman at work with.She did, and still does, correct me on faithfully/sincerely and full blocked open format.
It really unnerves one guy.
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