Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2000 21:41:51 -0600 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: Lowell Gilbert <lowell@world.std.com>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Punctuation conventions (was: cvs commit: src/games/fortune/datfiles fortunes) Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20000601202115.04a03780@localhost> In-Reply-To: <44g0qxymne.fsf@lowellg.ne.mediaone.net> References: <grog@lemis.com's message of "2 Jun 2000 07:39:08 %2B0800"> <8h6s6s$9sb$1@FreeBSD.csie.NCTU.edu.tw>
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At 06:03 PM 6/1/2000, Lowell Gilbert wrote: >Which part? The first sentence was certainly false: hand-set type in >English conventionally used spacing that was *between* one and two >spaces wide. Actually, manual typesetters used two "spaces." However, those spaces were not usually a full em wide. (An "em" is the width of the character "m" in the typeface being used. Most characters are narrower than this unless the font is monospaced. A sentence break was typically about 1.5 ems wide -- sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on how the font was designed. Newspapers were the first to abandon extra space between sentences because it could literally affect their bottom line. (The New York Times' motto is "All the news that's fit to print;" however, as any newspaper journalist knows, most papers -- including the Times -- tend to amend this to "All the news that fits.") If you look at any modern American newspaper, you'll see no more space before the cap at the start of a sentence than before any other capital letter. A good text on typing will (or should!) explain how the same convention propagated to business correspondence. In my high school typing class, we were required to practice both the one-space and two-space conventions on the theory that it would help a typist adapt to a corporation's required style. However, we were told that the "modern" method was to use single spaces between sentences for the sake of speed and simplicity. Temporary employment agencies such as Kelly, whose temps were graded according to the number of words they could type per minute, were strong advocates of the one-space convention during the 60's and 70's because it made their people more productive and hence more valuable. Corporations were quickly persuaded and adopted the same conventions. It was, likewise, temporary agencies that pushed for the adoption of business letter formats in which everything was left-justified. This made the creation of letters simpler and faster. It also made it easier to use typewriters such as the newfangled IBM Selectric. (The Selectric, which used a ball instead of individual hammers, couldn't jam; however, unlike earlier models, it didn't allow the typist to move the carriage by hand.) Tabs (and, hence, indented paragraphs) were also considered undesirable because different brands and models of typewriters had different methods of setting and clearing them. Some had "clear all tabs" keys; others didn't. Typists -- either from a typing pool or a temporary agency -- could migrate more easily from machine to machine if they didn't have to deal with the idiosyncrasies of different tab mechanisms. At 06:22 PM 6/1/2000, Troy Settle wrote: >Probably biting off much more than I can chew here, but do you honestly >expect Brett to have documentation? I'd imagine that his over-abundance >of opinion leaves little room for documented facts. My late father, who worked as an advertising production manager and design consultant, spent much of his life choosing fonts and faces for printed matter. My grandfather, an engraver, created fonts for the engraved signs and labels used on military equipment -- including the controls in airplane cockpits -- during WWII. (Needless to say, these had to be VERY readable.) My father's brother, who is still alive, still does advertising and production work. Other more distant relatives have done type design. In short, I come from a family of typesetters, printers, engravers, and type designers. I therefore know whereof I speak here. --Brett Glass To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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