Did you know that if you took all the extra spaces people type between sentences every day and placed them end to end, they would fill 10,745 pages? Every single day?
Yeah, I totally made that up. So you did not know that. But it sounded kind of compelling there for a minute, huh?
It is true, however, that you're only supposed to type one space between sentences, and it's true that the two-space mythology is maddeningly persistent and it's even true that I managed to make an entire column out of that topic in this past Sunday's Times Free Press.
Well, that topic and also TED Talks and New Year's resolutions. In fact, a couple of people even told me they didn't know about TED Talks until they read that column. So maybe that column did more than just take up space.
But, honestly, probably not.
I have to think that "proportional space fonts" are largely responsible for allowing two spaces to look anything but weird - bring back typewriter fonts!
ReplyDeleteAlso, watch: http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_the_game_that_can_give_you_10_extra_years_of_life.html
Mary, I love your blogs and many Kudos to your insights and reflections about life and living.
ReplyDeleteI spent 20 years as an SEC External Financial Reporting Manager for three publicly traded companies and was responsible for the writing, editing and proofing all all the quarterly and annual stockholder reports.
Everyone kept trying to put those two spaces in after the sentence end period. Thank goodness for Word's "Find and Replace" function.
I watch TED all the time. Most of it is great stuff.
Thanks for your contributions to making the simple things in life thought provoking :)
Jim's grammar school pal,
Arnold