While two spaces after a period is also deeply ingrained in my typing, it’s really only relevant to things typed on a typewriter, or a word-processing font that resembles a typewriter. On a typewriter, all characters are monospaced, so that an i or a . take up the same amount of space as a W or M. With monospacing, two spaces after a period are needed to adequately visually separate sentences.
But word-processing programs generally use proportional fonts now, so that text is typeset and varying widths of characters are accounted for. That typesetting also generally accounts for appropriate spacing after punctuation.
I generally avoid using Arial or other non-serif fonts, but I’ll aemit that I find Courier New a bit taxing to read, precisely because it’s monospaced. (It’s the font I had in mind when I referred to word-processing fonts that resemble a typewriter.)
I typically use Times New Roman or Book Antiqua, both of which are proportionally spaced, serif fonts.
There's a special font for dyslexic people called OpenDyslexic. It 'sits' the words down on the line. I love it - I have it on my kindle and any time I can choose the font.
There's a special font for dyslexic people called OpenDyslexic. It 'sits' the words down on the line. I love it - I have it on my kindle and any time I can choose the font.
Yes, I’ve seen that but I find it distracting, and I need something that students with a variety of additional needs will be comfortable with. The Royal National Institute for the Blind recommends Arial.
I think the fonts in the cleartype font collection are not bad, and in the case of Constantia and Consolas are quite good (and the latter is slightly easier on the screen than Courier)
I routinely use the Courier New font, in which all characters take up the same amount of space and have serifs as needed. I dislike the default fonts.
Have you got something against people trying to read what you produce?
I'm kind of tempted to convert all the documents I write for work to Wingdings, or maybe Papyrus, after the first page or two to see if anyone actually reads them. I'm pretty sure 90%+ of my work is solely to sit on file in case the ICO come calling.
I routinely use the Courier New font, in which all characters take up the same amount of space and have serifs as needed. I dislike the default fonts.
Have you got something against people trying to read what you produce?
I'm kind of tempted to convert all the documents I write for work to Wingdings, or maybe Papyrus, after the first page or two to see if anyone actually reads them. I'm pretty sure 90%+ of my work is solely to sit on file in case the ICO come calling.
I'm more tempted to write the next one in Welsh for similar reasons.
I routinely use the Courier New font, in which all characters take up the same amount of space and have serifs as needed. I dislike the default fonts.
Have you got something against people trying to read what you produce?
I'm kind of tempted to convert all the documents I write for work to Wingdings, or maybe Papyrus, after the first page or two to see if anyone actually reads them. I'm pretty sure 90%+ of my work is solely to sit on file in case the ICO come calling.
I'm more tempted to write the next one in Welsh for similar reasons.
Alas, my grasp of the Gaelic is insufficient. Besides, if someone caught on I'd be asked to make everything bilingual.
It is ingrained in me to have two spaces after a full stop. Thinking about it I did this when handwriting (do you remember that?) as well - a longer space after the sentence end - and handwriting is usually a proportional font.
One of the systems at work want to use US spelling such as color for colour. I can’t see anywhere to change it.
I have to work with far too many systems where you can change the date setting from M/D/Y to DD/MM/YY but it doesn't do it consistently throughout the app.
Apropos of the need for full stops, or commas, or whatever in the right place, my old English Master had a quote from Shakespeare's Henry V's speech before Agincourt: "But when the blast of war blasts in, our ears then imitate the action of the tiger".
It is ingrained in me to have two spaces after a full stop. Thinking about it I did this when handwriting (do you remember that?) as well - a longer space after the sentence end - and handwriting is usually a proportional font.
I tend to not leave spaces anywhere when hand writing. I have to remember to do it when I'm writing something someone else will have to read.
It is ingrained in me to have two spaces after a full stop. Thinking about it I did this when handwriting (do you remember that?) as well - a longer space after the sentence end - and handwriting is usually a proportional font.
A lot of computing interfaces will interpret two spaces as a tip to put in a full stop, so in that sense it's something I continue to do.
One of the systems at work want to use US spelling such as color for colour. I can’t see anywhere to change it.
I have to work with far too many systems where you can change the date setting from M/D/Y to DD/MM/YY but it doesn't do it consistently throughout the app.
One of the systems at work want to use US spelling such as color for colour. I can’t see anywhere to change it.
I have to work with far too many systems where you can change the date setting from M/D/Y to DD/MM/YY but it doesn't do it consistently throughout the app.
YYYY-MM-DD is clearly the correct answer
That is how officialdom often - but not consistently - does it in Canada. It's often reversed and the month and day are sometimes in a different order. The American numerical version of M-D-Y can be misleading and can be serious in legal or contractual documents. When I have the choice I write it in what seems to me to be the clear, unambiguous ascending order, as in 21 May 2025, which is exactly how it appears in all four of our family passports: UK, US, Canadian, Irish.
I always use YYYY-MM-DD in naming scanned files of a house- or record-keeping nature a way of automatically sorting those files in chronological order.
The YYYYDDMM format does make it easy to sort entries in order, but this is actually a holdover from the use of COBOL (which continues). In other languages, this format holds fewer advantages (and is still no less useful than others).
One of the systems at work want to use US spelling such as color for colour. I can’t see anywhere to change it.
I have to work with far too many systems where you can change the date setting from M/D/Y to DD/MM/YY but it doesn't do it consistently throughout the app.
Well, if it's a typo then the YYYYMMDD format is not so much a holdover these days, as it's also part of an ISO standard (8601 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601 ), albeit in that form it's deprecated at this point.
We've been having trouble with the mobile phone billing and discovered just now that my wife's iPhone's date format is M/D/Y. This was unhelpful when trying to track down spurious charges. Possibly there is a setting that can be changed, but messing with that phone tends to make any problem worse.
We've been having trouble with the mobile phone billing and discovered just now that my wife's iPhone's date format is M/D/Y. This was unhelpful when trying to track down spurious charges. Possibly there is a setting that can be changed, but messing with that phone tends to make any problem worse.
We've been having trouble with the mobile phone billing and discovered just now that my wife's iPhone's date format is M/D/Y. This was unhelpful when trying to track down spurious charges. Possibly there is a setting that can be changed, but messing with that phone tends to make any problem worse.
YouTube is your friend
YouTube, and videos generally, are absolutely the worst way to find out how to do anything.
5 minutes plugging their sponsor
5 minutes plugging their channel
5 minutes talking about the thing you want to do the thing on
5 minutes talking about why you might want to do the thing you want to do
5 minutes very slowly getting to the point where you can do the thing
2 seconds showing how to do the thing.
I've learned a couple of really helpful procedures from YouTube videos. I'm sorry they haven't worked for you, but after I gave up beating up Google and DuckDuckGo, I turned to YouTube and learned the solution to my problems in less than 3 minutes.
We've been having trouble with the mobile phone billing and discovered just now that my wife's iPhone's date format is M/D/Y. This was unhelpful when trying to track down spurious charges. Possibly there is a setting that can be changed, but messing with that phone tends to make any problem worse.
YouTube is your friend
YouTube, and videos generally, are absolutely the worst way to find out how to do anything.
5 minutes plugging their sponsor
5 minutes plugging their channel
5 minutes talking about the thing you want to do the thing on
5 minutes talking about why you might want to do the thing you want to do
5 minutes very slowly getting to the point where you can do the thing
2 seconds showing how to do the thing.
We've been having trouble with the mobile phone billing and discovered just now that my wife's iPhone's date format is M/D/Y. This was unhelpful when trying to track down spurious charges. Possibly there is a setting that can be changed, but messing with that phone tends to make any problem worse.
YouTube is your friend
YouTube, and videos generally, are absolutely the worst way to find out how to do anything.
5 minutes plugging their sponsor
5 minutes plugging their channel
5 minutes talking about the thing you want to do the thing on
5 minutes talking about why you might want to do the thing you want to do
5 minutes very slowly getting to the point where you can do the thing
2 seconds showing how to do the thing.
We hates them, precious, yes we does!
Depends on the topic, I find. When I'm doing phone surgery there's almost always a guy in India who has recorded a very simple video showing how it's done.
Enthusiastically agreed. I will spare you all here but I have a whole rant about how much video is taking over as the main medium for so many things where 10 years ago we had a choice of media. I find it very hard to take in information over video and I hate that often I have no choice.
Enthusiastically agreed. I will spare you all here but I have a whole rant about how much video is taking over as the main medium for so many things where 10 years ago we had a choice of media. I find it very hard to take in information over video and I hate that often I have no choice.
Agreed, and I also prefer proper grammar and punctuation. I had a professor who taught us that good grammar and punctuation were indicative of clear thinking. I've had some people say that kind of talk is elitist, and fairly they may be right, but there's something to it for me. I use it to try to keep myself honest.
I agree with Bullfrog's professor. Donald Knuth, one of the great names in programming, was asked what was the most important knowledge to have to become a good programmer. He said it was an absolute mastery of one's native language.
Enthusiastically agreed. I will spare you all here but I have a whole rant about how much video is taking over as the main medium for so many things where 10 years ago we had a choice of media. I find it very hard to take in information over video and I hate that often I have no choice.
Agreed, and I also prefer proper grammar and punctuation. I had a professor who taught us that good grammar and punctuation were indicative of clear thinking. I've had some people say that kind of talk is elitist, and fairly they may be right, but there's something to it for me. I use it to try to keep myself honest.
The problem comes in, for me, when people equate "good" with "standard". There's something to be said for formal communications using standard English, but it's only a convention; nowt wrong wi' some variation, as me mam learnt me as a lad. Indeed, the ability to code switch is itself an aspect of language mastery.
I do too, generally, but unless the illustrations are very good there are times when a video edges ahead, and I'll settle for having a broader range of videos (because they're quick to produce) vs a smaller variety of written instructions. I do love a good Dell service manual, however. Most other laptop manufacturers aren't so open with their information and it's a PITA sometimes to figure how few screws you can get away with removing or which bits of trim unclip and which are glued or hiding a screw under a rubber foot.
Enthusiastically agreed. I will spare you all here but I have a whole rant about how much video is taking over as the main medium for so many things where 10 years ago we had a choice of media. I find it very hard to take in information over video and I hate that often I have no choice.
Agreed, and I also prefer proper grammar and punctuation. I had a professor who taught us that good grammar and punctuation were indicative of clear thinking. I've had some people say that kind of talk is elitist, and fairly they may be right, but there's something to it for me. I use it to try to keep myself honest.
The problem comes in, for me, when people equate "good" with "standard". There's something to be said for formal communications using standard English, but it's only a convention; nowt wrong wi' some variation, as me mam learnt me as a lad. Indeed, the ability to code switch is itself an aspect of language mastery.
Shared standards make it easier to communicate, but certainly not necessary. Also relevant people who think their standards are better than others. For instance, many Black people from the U.S. use English a little different than I do, particularly when speaking with each other. This does not impair communication (in my experience) even if they do use that grammar with me, but if I act like my grammar is better than theirs? That will!
Shared standards make it easier to communicate, but certainly not necessary. Also relevant people who think their standards are better than others. For instance, many Black people from the U.S. use English a little different than I do, particularly when speaking with each other. This does not impair communication (in my experience) even if they do use that grammar with me, but if I act like my grammar is better than theirs? That will!
Noted because it seems relevant: @Bullfrog points out (invited comment) that I used English in a nonstandard way myself when I said different not differently.
Perhaps also relevantly: I was raised with a very very strong knowledge of English grammar, and found that I could sound like a snob whenever I wanted. Instead, I use my strong knowledge of the rules to consider which conventions I wanted to break and why.* I think the right question is why am I breaking that convention and what am I communicating by so doing. I could analyze why I said different instead of differently above, but it would be navel gazing. That said, if you had to reread that sentence because the difference confused you, then it was probably a mistake on my part.
Enthusiastically agreed. I will spare you all here but I have a whole rant about how much video is taking over as the main medium for so many things where 10 years ago we had a choice of media. I find it very hard to take in information over video and I hate that often I have no choice.
Agreed, and I also prefer proper grammar and punctuation. I had a professor who taught us that good grammar and punctuation were indicative of clear thinking. I've had some people say that kind of talk is elitist, and fairly they may be right, but there's something to it for me. I use it to try to keep myself honest.
The problem comes in, for me, when people equate "good" with "standard". There's something to be said for formal communications using standard English, but it's only a convention; nowt wrong wi' some variation, as me mam learnt me as a lad. Indeed, the ability to code switch is itself an aspect of language mastery.
I agree with you there. And there's even a logic to it, using certain words reflexively or understanding when to accept or reject a particular rule. For instance, some people think that to flagrantly split an infinitive is a grotesque violation. But is it truly an abuse of logic in a language that has no proper infinitive verb form? "To insert" is two words, so to properly insert an adverb is no impropriety.
What's important is to understand the language one is coding in, to use @HarryCH 's sense.
One might argue that it is kind of racist, as they say, to presume that nonstandard English is devoid of logic, as if [SARK] our language is the the very epitome of reason. [/SARK] It ain't.
Enthusiastically agreed. I will spare you all here but I have a whole rant about how much video is taking over as the main medium for so many things where 10 years ago we had a choice of media. I find it very hard to take in information over video and I hate that often I have no choice.
Agreed, and I also prefer proper grammar and punctuation. I had a professor who taught us that good grammar and punctuation were indicative of clear thinking. I've had some people say that kind of talk is elitist, and fairly they may be right, but there's something to it for me. I use it to try to keep myself honest.
The problem comes in, for me, when people equate "good" with "standard". There's something to be said for formal communications using standard English, but it's only a convention; nowt wrong wi' some variation, as me mam learnt me as a lad. Indeed, the ability to code switch is itself an aspect of language mastery.
I agree with you there. And there's even a logic to it, using certain words reflexively or understanding when to accept or reject a particular rule. For instance, some people think that to flagrantly split an infinitive is a grotesque violation. But is it truly an abuse of logic in a language that has no proper infinitive verb form? "To insert" is two words, so to properly insert an adverb is no impropriety.
This is a prime example of the legacy of grammarians who considered Latin the epitome of a learned language, and who believed that for English to really be taken seriously it should reflect the structure of Latin. Never mind that English is a Germanic language. Those grammarians imposed rules that were foreign to the grammatical structure of English, which is why such rules have continued through the centuries to be violated with regularity; they don’t “feel” right to many if not most native speakers. (The prohibition of ending sentences with prepositions also falls in this category,)
And all of this raises the question of exactly what constitutes “standard English”? There isn’t really one standard; rather there are many standards—some cultural, some contextual. As just one example, so-called Standard British English would have me say “the team are,” which to American ears sounds decidedly non-standard. And that’s well before one gets into dialectical standards.
"*The team are" feels wrong to this speaker of standard UK English though I think there are UK dialects in which it's correct.
The objection to splitting infinitives is especially illogical in that many English verbs tenses are formed using auxiliary verbs and there is no purported rule that it's wrong to split any other tense.
"*The team are" feels wrong to this speaker of standard UK English though I think there are UK dialects in which it's correct..
Yes, I wondered when I typed whether I might be overgeneralizing on British usage. I’m used to hearing usages like “team are” and “family are” in British tv shows and the like, so “Standard British Usage” may have been an unwarranted assumption on my part.
Comments
But word-processing programs generally use proportional fonts now, so that text is typeset and varying widths of characters are accounted for. That typesetting also generally accounts for appropriate spacing after punctuation.
I typically use Times New Roman or Book Antiqua, both of which are proportionally spaced, serif fonts.
Have you got something against people trying to read what you produce?
I'm kind of tempted to convert all the documents I write for work to Wingdings, or maybe Papyrus, after the first page or two to see if anyone actually reads them. I'm pretty sure 90%+ of my work is solely to sit on file in case the ICO come calling.
I'm more tempted to write the next one in Welsh for similar reasons.
Alas, my grasp of the Gaelic is insufficient. Besides, if someone caught on I'd be asked to make everything bilingual.
I have to work with far too many systems where you can change the date setting from M/D/Y to DD/MM/YY but it doesn't do it consistently throughout the app.
I tend to not leave spaces anywhere when hand writing. I have to remember to do it when I'm writing something someone else will have to read.
A lot of computing interfaces will interpret two spaces as a tip to put in a full stop, so in that sense it's something I continue to do.
YYYY-MM-DD is clearly the correct answer
That is how officialdom often - but not consistently - does it in Canada. It's often reversed and the month and day are sometimes in a different order. The American numerical version of M-D-Y can be misleading and can be serious in legal or contractual documents. When I have the choice I write it in what seems to me to be the clear, unambiguous ascending order, as in 21 May 2025, which is exactly how it appears in all four of our family passports: UK, US, Canadian, Irish.
I can't see why it's better than YYYYMMDD for sorting purposes (which is largely - though not wholly - language independent anyway).
Hear hear!
I know in Word it's file > options > language.
Well, if it's a typo then the YYYYMMDD format is not so much a holdover these days, as it's also part of an ISO standard (8601 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601 ), albeit in that form it's deprecated at this point.
YouTube is your friend
YouTube, and videos generally, are absolutely the worst way to find out how to do anything.
5 minutes plugging their sponsor
5 minutes plugging their channel
5 minutes talking about the thing you want to do the thing on
5 minutes talking about why you might want to do the thing you want to do
5 minutes very slowly getting to the point where you can do the thing
2 seconds showing how to do the thing.
We hates them, precious, yes we does!
Make sure to click 'like' and 'subscribe' !
Depends on the topic, I find. When I'm doing phone surgery there's almost always a guy in India who has recorded a very simple video showing how it's done.
Enthusiastically agreed. I will spare you all here but I have a whole rant about how much video is taking over as the main medium for so many things where 10 years ago we had a choice of media. I find it very hard to take in information over video and I hate that often I have no choice.
Agreed, and I also prefer proper grammar and punctuation. I had a professor who taught us that good grammar and punctuation were indicative of clear thinking. I've had some people say that kind of talk is elitist, and fairly they may be right, but there's something to it for me. I use it to try to keep myself honest.
The problem comes in, for me, when people equate "good" with "standard". There's something to be said for formal communications using standard English, but it's only a convention; nowt wrong wi' some variation, as me mam learnt me as a lad. Indeed, the ability to code switch is itself an aspect of language mastery.
I do too, generally, but unless the illustrations are very good there are times when a video edges ahead, and I'll settle for having a broader range of videos (because they're quick to produce) vs a smaller variety of written instructions. I do love a good Dell service manual, however. Most other laptop manufacturers aren't so open with their information and it's a PITA sometimes to figure how few screws you can get away with removing or which bits of trim unclip and which are glued or hiding a screw under a rubber foot.
Shared standards make it easier to communicate, but certainly not necessary. Also relevant people who think their standards are better than others. For instance, many Black people from the U.S. use English a little different than I do, particularly when speaking with each other. This does not impair communication (in my experience) even if they do use that grammar with me, but if I act like my grammar is better than theirs? That will!
Noted because it seems relevant: @Bullfrog points out (invited comment) that I used English in a nonstandard way myself when I said different not differently.
Perhaps also relevantly: I was raised with a very very strong knowledge of English grammar, and found that I could sound like a snob whenever I wanted. Instead, I use my strong knowledge of the rules to consider which conventions I wanted to break and why.* I think the right question is why am I breaking that convention and what am I communicating by so doing. I could analyze why I said different instead of differently above, but it would be navel gazing. That said, if you had to reread that sentence because the difference confused you, then it was probably a mistake on my part.
*to get a job as an editor and writer also
I agree with you there. And there's even a logic to it, using certain words reflexively or understanding when to accept or reject a particular rule. For instance, some people think that to flagrantly split an infinitive is a grotesque violation. But is it truly an abuse of logic in a language that has no proper infinitive verb form? "To insert" is two words, so to properly insert an adverb is no impropriety.
What's important is to understand the language one is coding in, to use @HarryCH 's sense.
One might argue that it is kind of racist, as they say, to presume that nonstandard English is devoid of logic, as if [SARK] our language is the the very epitome of reason. [/SARK] It ain't.
And all of this raises the question of exactly what constitutes “standard English”? There isn’t really one standard; rather there are many standards—some cultural, some contextual. As just one example, so-called Standard British English would have me say “the team are,” which to American ears sounds decidedly non-standard. And that’s well before one gets into dialectical standards.
The objection to splitting infinitives is especially illogical in that many English verbs tenses are formed using auxiliary verbs and there is no purported rule that it's wrong to split any other tense.