I think this is the first topic I've created in literally 2 or 3 years.
Just noticed that the site has started to prune 2 spaces after every period into 1 space.
I don't appreciate my characters going missing, regardless of whether my paragraphs are grammatically or lexicographically correct.
That is all. That is all
And yes, I know that in reality the spaces are not really being pruned, but displayed differently.
Actually, that's just how HTML works. Also, the practice you mention was relevant when monospace fonts were used exclusive. (I may be wrong with this.) With proportional (varying-width) fonts, it is actually rather difficult to tell how many spaces are used...
Where are you referring to your text going down to 1 space? When you use an HTML-based editor, like CKEditor, or whatever Firefox or IE has built in, you can insert multiple spaces, and it will generate the (non-breaking space) characters.
In some contexts it's customary to put two spaces at the beginning of each paragraph, while in other contexts it's not. I'm not really sure of the exact situations and rules where this might apply.
Joined: 11/4/2007
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Ah, okay. They never taught this stuff at the schools I went to, that is all.
They were otherwise amazingly insistent on the nuances of Australian English and got pissed off when someone wrote in American.
Joined: 11/22/2004
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Yeah, we'd need to edit the forum code to generate one (non-breaking space character) for that to work. It's just a basic limitation of HTML, but for a good reason: it would otherwise be impossible to nicely format the source markup without huge spaces appearing everywhere.
Personally I think it's an outdated practice that doesn't really look any better typographically.
Warp wrote:
In some contexts it's customary to put two spaces at the beginning of each paragraph, while in other contexts it's not. I'm not really sure of the exact situations and rules where this might apply.
An indent of the first line is not necessarily two spaces. Could be more, could be less. In CSS this would be done with the text-indent attribute. It's solely a typographical consideration made to look the paragraph text look more legible.
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Flygon wrote:
They were otherwise amazingly insistent on the nuances of Australian English and got pissed off when someone wrote in American.
Same here, actually. The internet taught me US English, but they didn't like that very much. Failed a lot of tests because of it (well, also because I never studied for English class). Fortunately they didn't seem to mind it during the final exam because I passed with a 9 out of 10 eventually.
Wish I could use international English, though. I just think it looks better and makes a bit more sense.
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Bisqwit wrote:
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
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Bisqwit wrote:
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
TASManiac wrote:
What's the difference between Australian and American English?
Basically, Australian English is British English but with some small differences. They're basically interchangeable because everyone here speaks 6 different Englishes anyway. :B
And another topic leaves the track^^
Concerning american english: here in germany we are also taught british englisch. this is going so far that american expressions are sometimes even rated as mistakes
i always complained about that because i dont like the british accent and american english is the most spoken english (citation needed)
but if you had the wrong teachers you couldnt do anything
How should I know what I think before I read what I post?
A pedantic person would ask "which British accent?", as there are probably hundreds of clearly distinguishable accents in England alone. (Good thing I'm not that pedantic. ;) )
Anyways, personally I love the so-called "posh" English accent. That's the main reason why I like TV series like Keeping Up Appearances.
As an American, I remember once getting marked down in school for using a British spelling in a vocabulary test. I'd learned the word (outside of school) with its British spelling and didn't see any need to re-learn a different spelling when I already knew one correct one. My teacher evidently felt differently.
I always thought the "two spaces after a period" thing was rather silly, too.
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Concerning american english: here in germany we are also taught british englisch. this is going so far that american expressions are sometimes even rated as mistakes
huh? I'm german too, and back when I was in school we switched between BE and AE depending on the teacher we had at the time. Some teachers had learned BE, others AE, and they'd teach as they know it.
As such, no points were deducted for using the "wrong" english, we only had to be consistent in our usage.
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What's going on in this thread? Why does anyone need this at all?
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I'm American and I thought it was weird when I was told that the "correct" way to write was with two spaces after a period before a new sentence starts. I never do, though; apparently, I'm "incorrect".
Joined: 11/22/2004
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CoolKirby wrote:
I'm American and I thought it was weird when I was told that the "correct" way to write was with two spaces after a period before a new sentence starts. I never do, though; apparently, I'm "incorrect".
Nothing correct or incorrect about it. It's a typographic style choice, nothing more.
I'm American and I thought it was weird when I was told that the "correct" way to write was with two spaces after a period before a new sentence starts. I never do, though; apparently, I'm "incorrect".
Nothing correct or incorrect about it. It's a typographic style choice, nothing more.
I'm told by multiple people whenever I write a report for school or application to a business to "remember to use two spaces to start a new sentence", so I always thought it was the formal (or "correct") way.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
The double spaces were used in the typewriter days, when it was considered good practice to do so, but even then it wasn't universal. These days it's solely a typographic consideration. However, it's generally thought to only be appropriate for monospaced fonts (like Courier).
But, you know, if your teachers are telling you to do it then you should probably follow their advice, if only to prevent having an argument with them about it.
