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Many of us who were blind as children were taught typing using a
typewriter and the book Touch Typing in Ten Lessons. One of the
first things we were taught after learning to type sentences was to
"space twice after a period, or when the following word begins with
a capital letter". Below is a rather passionate column from Melissa
Harris that probably applies to us. I suspected this was the case
when the proportional font went away, but still notice a lot of
emails that include two spaces after periods if I check. Those who
don't see the formatting would have no reason to look for this
change. This two-space habit will be a hard one to break for some.<br>
<br>
Cordially,<br>
Bill<br>
<br>
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<td>Article from Chicago Tribune Business Section 2015 05 06</td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">Date: </th>
<td>Thu, 7 May 2015 18:01:28 -0400 (EDT)</td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">From: </th>
<td>NFB-NEWSLINE Online <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:nfbnewsline@nfb.org"><nfbnewsline@nfb.org></a></td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">To: </th>
<td>William B. Reif <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:billreif@ameritech.net"><billreif@ameritech.net></a></td>
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Chicago Confidential. One space between sentences, please Don't
treat your writing like a double-wide trailer. One space will do..
Melissa Harris. Please stop putting two spaces between sentences.
It makes you look like a dinosaur. . Yes, I will get a lot of
angry letters for that last remark. But you really should thank
me. Or your secretary should thank me. For those subjected to
working with people who continue to hit that space bar twice,
memorize these instructions for find and replace in Microsoft
Word. For Mac users, hit Shift-Apple-H. For PC users, hit Ctrl-H.
Hit the space bar twice in the first field. Hit it once in the
"Replace With" field. Then click "Replace All. (Even though I know
these shortcuts, for some reason I continue to go line by line
fixing this mess.) Now, I wasn't always wise to this. Thankfully,
journalism school beat it into me at a very early age. The bible
for journalistic style, "The Associated Press Stylebook," says:
"Use a single space after the period at the end of a sentence.
Curiously, the oldest stylebook I have, the 1995 edition, does not
contain such direct instructions. The most detailed explanation I
could find as to why we all, at one time or another, have done
this wrong comes from Slate. It starts with the typewriter, which
has some deficiencies that are less obvious than the fact that it
single-handedly gave rise to the white-out industry. Typewriters
create monospaced type, meaning that every letter, number or
character is given an equal space on the page. "Monospaced type
gives you text that looks 'loose' and uneven; there's a lot of
white space between characters and words, so it's more difficult
to spot the spaces between sentences immediately," Farhad Manjoo
wrote in Slate. "Hence the adoption of the two-space rule -- on a
typewriter, an extra space after a sentence makes text easier to
read. Here's the thing, though: Monospaced fonts went out in the
1970s. Now almost all fonts on our computers are proportional,
meaning an "I" gets much less space than an "M. There's a lot less
white space between characters and words, making it very easy for
readers to spot the single space at the end of a sentence. And
when there are two spaces there instead? Well, your copy looks
like it has holes wide enough for a bus to drive through. Doesn't
it? See. I'm right. ---------- <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:mmharris@tribpub.com">mmharris@tribpub.com</a> Twitter
@chiconfidential <br>
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