Microsoft Word now flags double spaces after a period as errors • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft Word now flags double spaces after a period as errors

#21

Post by toomanybeersies » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 5:34 AM UTC

basicallydan wrote: post #10

This may not seem like a big deal, but consider the effect that such an influential source of “correctness” can have on the general sense of what is correct. Spell checkers like Word’s are responsible for the “z” in British English being demonised. Once upon a time, according to linguist Gretchen McCullen, it was common in British English to use both z and s. But somewhere along the line, automated spell checkers cat…

I don't think that's right, or at least maybe not for the colonies.

I grew up in New Zealand and my mother was very insistent that I spelled and spoke "Proper English", rather than American English. This was before Microsoft Word was popular and the source of truth for the English language, especially for my tech-illiterate mother. She also didn't like me using slang, especially the Kiwi tendency to say "sweet as" and put "aye" on the end of sentences.

Maybe it's a colonial hangover, trying to hold on to the British identity, or maybe it's because she had a less privileged upbringing and saw "Proper English" as a sign of higher status.

Re: Microsoft Word now flags double spaces after a period as errors

#22

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 5:35 AM UTC

robbrown451 wrote: post #8

That's pretty obnoxious. I do two spaces out of habit, and would prefer it just removed them quietly rather than forcing me to relearn. (which is what HTML does, effectively.... it displays it the same if you use two spaces)

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft Word now flags double spaces after a period as errors

#23

Post by svat » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 5:35 AM UTC

See https://web.archive.org/web/20171218122807/http://www.heracl... for a great article on the history of wider spaces between sentences — how there were two traditions of typography and things started to shift towards equal spaces in the 1930s–1960s (i.e. inter-sentence space being the same as the inter-word space). I'm even holding on my lap right now a book published in 1957 by a reputed publisher (Parkinson's Law — Riverside Press / Houghton Mifflin, 24th printing) that uses wider spaces between sentences. As do of course all of Knuth's books (e.g. TAOCP Volume 4A from 2011).

For some reason, the other typographical tradition (which I suspect owes its ascendancy to William Morris in some way) is dominant today (which is fine), but the way they've nearly completely rewritten history (e.g. blaming “double” spaces on typewriters) is mystifying.

The current version of the relevant Wikipedia article is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_senten...

Re: Microsoft Word now flags double spaces after a period as errors

#24

Post by docdeek » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 5:43 AM UTC

toomanybeersies wrote: post #21

basicallydan wrote: post #10

This may not seem like a big deal, but consider the effect that such an influential source of “correctness” can have on the general sense of what is correct. Spell checkers like Word’s are responsible for the “z” in British English being demonised. Once upon a time, according to linguist Gretchen McCullen, it was common in British English to use both z and s. But somewhere along the line, automated spell checkers cat…

I don't think that's right, or at least maybe not for the colonies. I grew up in New Zealand and my mother was very insistent that I spelled and spoke "Proper English", rather than American English. This was before Microsoft Word was popular and the source of truth for the English language, especially for my tech-illiterate mother. She also didn't like me using slang, especially the Kiwi tendency to say "sweet as" an…

My experience in Australia was similar: always the ’s’ for Australian/British English, with the ‘z’ for American English. Well before spellcheckers, save for the teacher or parent who would spell-check your work and catch every organization and specialized, and correct your alphabet song to finish with ‘zed’ and never ‘zee’. :)

Re: Microsoft Word now flags double spaces after a period as errors

#25

Post by tunesmith » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 5:46 AM UTC

I used to be in favor of double-spacing but then learned it was because of monospaced fonts. So now I only do it when my output is in monospaced fonts.

Re: Microsoft Word now flags double spaces after a period as errors

#26

Post by copperx » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 5:49 AM UTC

gorgoiler wrote: post #20

brandmeyer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programs that do typesetting for you (Markdown, LaTeX), will ignore the number of spaces after the period in your "source" code and lay it out in the output with a single space. I've gotten in the habit of single-space in variable-width fonts, and double-space in fixed-width fonts.

Not so for the default mode in LaTeX. It tries to guess which periods indicate end-of-sentence (based on whether the next letter is capitalized) and will add additional horizontal space accordingly, unless you tell it not to by declaring your document uses “French Spacing”. (Edit: and my memory may be serving me incorrectly here, but I recall 20 years ago having a support package that also detected double-space in th…

I remember reading the TeXbook and learning that the space after a period is wider if there's a capital afterwards and the various ways of suppressing this behavior.

So it's a TeX thing, not LaTeX.

Re: Microsoft Word now flags double spaces after a period as errors

#27

Post by bdcravens » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 5:50 AM UTC

Having learned to type on a typewriter in the early 90s (yet another way to date myself) for a long time I used two spaces in word processing and emails etc, and then switched to one as it seemed the popular convention. At some point my brain made the switch to what it considers "normal". It's been so long, I can't remember when that happened.

Re: Microsoft Word now flags double spaces after a period as errors

#28

Post by copperx » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 5:51 AM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #22

robbrown451 wrote: post #8

That's pretty obnoxious. I do two spaces out of habit, and would prefer it just removed them quietly rather than forcing me to relearn. (which is what HTML does, effectively.... it displays it the same if you use two spaces)

[deleted]

It's easy to forget that computers exist to serve humans, and not the other way around.

Re: Microsoft Word now flags double spaces after a period as errors

#29

Post by dependenttypes » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 5:51 AM UTC

basicallydan wrote: post #10

This may not seem like a big deal, but consider the effect that such an influential source of “correctness” can have on the general sense of what is correct. Spell checkers like Word’s are responsible for the “z” in British English being demonised. Once upon a time, according to linguist Gretchen McCullen, it was common in British English to use both z and s. But somewhere along the line, automated spell checkers cat…

I really wish that there were spell checkers that offered en-GB-oxendict.

Re: Microsoft Word now flags double spaces after a period as errors

#30

Post by daxfohl » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 5:51 AM UTC

Strange, I learned double spacing in school in 1991 and have somehow gone my whole life until today without knowing or noticing that single spacing was even a thing.