Single Space or Double Space
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@JaredBusch said:
They "gave way" decades ago. No matter what you think, or how you were taught.
Language is a living thing. It is always changing, written or verbal, it does not matter. There are no rules for how a language changes. It is changed by the users of the language as they use it.
There is a line, though. While that is true (for English, French does have a definition) to some degree and that is what the Oxford Dictionary is all about it is not how Americans treat it (the Websters dictionaries are about defining use before it is used, not documenting how it is used) but if you allow ANYTHING then the shortcuts that kids use today is suddenly "acceptable."
Where do you draw lines? It sounds gr8 2 call it a living language but pretty soon we ain't using a real language anymore and noone understands each other.
The problem with the pure living language theory is that you can't having proper spelling or proper grammar and communications suffers or fails. Soon ironic means coincidental and there is no word left for irony and cloud means hosted.
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@Dashrender said:
Cool I learned a few things today.
OK learned or Learnt?
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/words/learnt-vs-learned
Learned is by far the more common. Learnt, I feel, sounds better and follows the better pattern. Learned is the more common on both sides of the pond. Learnt is rare in the US, but common (just not the more common) in the UK.
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@JaredBusch said:
They "gave way" decades ago. No matter what you think, or how you were taught.
When, though? Long after the style was taught. Style started to change in low end printing around 1961. But when did the major style guides make the change to reflect the rise of the new style?
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The upside to a living language is that the use of traditional forms remains continually valid and newer styles take over but there is generally a use of the older, more formal (normally) styles to allow for those who wish to have formal, stylized, educated styles while others can have valid, simper, more fashionable styles.
In English this has been a standard migration for as long as the language has been recorded. Unlike French which is strictly regulated and effectively does not change, English mutates at an incredible rate. This causes a lot of issues, however, because regional differences rapidly make communications within the language difficult.
The example I always use of miscommunications is the Indian subcontinent commonly believing that revert is a fancy form of reply and miscommunicating with other regions.
But an example of a good living language change from the same region is the verbal use of "action".
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@scottalanmiller said:
Double spacing is from the hand written era. It continued into the typewriter era. It continued into the computer era. It's how the language has always been written. It is not an artifact of typewriters no matter what BS someone is trying to sell you.
Surely it's from the typesetting era? You can't have a double or single space with hand-writing, you can only have a space of undefined size.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Surely it's from the typesetting era? You can't have a double or single space with hand-writing, you can only have a space of undefined size.
I left much more space between sentences when handwriting than between words. I think that most people do. I was taught to do that. Apparently that became wrong at some point, but handwriting normally looked that way,
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For example, that is double spacing between sentences...
http://summerthinks.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/handwriting.jpg
Looks normal, right?
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But if you go back to medieval handwriting, spacing was rare. So maybe the printing press with movable type introduced the idea. If it did it was over 500 years ago. My guess is that it came about with handwriting first, but near to the same time. They would not have done it in print for no reason, it took extra effort and cost more.
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Of course, handwriting has never been about good legibility anyway...
http://clairegebben.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/1847-sample1.jpg
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@scottalanmiller said:
Of course, handwriting has never been about good legibility anyway...
http://clairegebben.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/1847-sample1.jpg
No Sh*t, right!
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There is a reason that I don't handwrite things. It's just a way of torturing the people that you make attempt to read it.
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@scottalanmiller said:
There is a reason that I don't handwrite things. It's just a way of torturing the people that you make attempt to read it.
Yeah I'm in the same boat. When I was signing the contracts for my mortgage, the lender asked me to not use my actual signature and instead write my name in normal cursive... LOL
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Ha ha, I can't even do that anymore. I've not used cursive since elementary school. It has no purpose anywhere else. Why did it even exist except to be pretentious. It's never been easy to read.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Ha ha, I can't even do that anymore. I've not used cursive since elementary school. It has no purpose anywhere else. Why did it even exist except to be pretentious. It's never been easy to read.
Signatures. That's the only reason left.
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My signature would be a stretch to call cursive.
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@scottalanmiller said:
There is a reason that I don't handwrite things. It's just a way of torturing the people that you make attempt to read it.
Including myself.....
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The common comma:
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Like Cursive, there are so many things you're forced to do in school that seem to have little actual relevance or need - the format of siting requirements for research papers, as an example.
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@Dashrender said:
Like Cursive, there are so many things you're forced to do in school that seem to have little actual relevance or need - the format of siting requirements for research papers, as an example.
That's a good one. Never used that in college, never would you ever use it in real life. An entire "skill" whose only purpose is to distract you from useful learning in high school. It's trivial to teach yet takes lots of effort on the students' part - exactly the kind of time wasting that teachers look for. Requires no effort or knowledge on the part of the teacher and offers a nearly limitless opportunity to mark off for something that doesn't matter rather than needing to read and comprehend what was actually written.
