(no subject)

[doyle]

I spent all today doing my RSA stage 2 word processing exam, which consists of proving you can press those square buttony things on the keyboard and magically make stuff happen on the screen omg! I've found myself really limited in the amount of temp jobs I can do without it, so I finally caved and paid the £180. I felt a bit stupid at finding out pernickety stuff I genuinely did not know, like putting two spaces after a full stop. I thought that went out with manual typewriters. The examiner's horrified look suggested this is a breach of word processing etiquette on par with going to a fancy dinner party and using your fish slice to indecently assault the host while whistling the theme to The Magic Roundabout.

Still, I hope I passed. The NSPCC didn't faff about making me put double spaces in; my interview there mainly consisted of "do you know what one of these computer thingummies does? Are you likely to have a breakdown if you have to type up sexually explicit material? Good, help yourself to enough tea to make any reasonable person explode." (Social workers drink a lot of tea. It is one of many interesting scientific facts I learned in the six months I worked there.)

My mother just shouted up the stairs to inform me that "the wee boy with the glasses" is on TV. Harry Potter? The Milky Bar kid? I am going to investigate.

Comments

[owl]

I hope you passed!

I thought that MS Word put the double spaces in as one of the many annoying services it contains, along with That Bloody Paperclip(TM). If it's for HTML, I don't think it's much of a factor in readability, there being other important things like using pink font on a violet background.

[disgracelands.livejournal.com]

Oh God, I remmeber RSA Stage 2 word processing! Word processing! I can't believe that term is still in use. And I was taught to type using two spaces after a full-stop and the minute I began writing professionally, was screamed at by sub-editors to only leave one space. It's a topsy turvy world.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

It is very hard to adjust to doing two spaces. I had to cheat and use Fnid/Replace.

[vampedvixen.livejournal.com]

I've already got the drinking lots of tea part down.

My first English professor in college yelled at me for putting two spaces after a full stop. Maybe they still do it in Britian though, since you people have weird grammar and spelling rules :P

[vampedvixen.livejournal.com]

Oh geez.. that paperclip MUST DIE!

Annoying stupid thing..

[maryavatar.livejournal.com]

Wow, I don't think I could stop putting a double space after my full stops. I've been doing it for 20 years. Even in Dreamweaver, and it refuses to recognise the second one; I know the second space-bar hit won't show up, but I can't stop doing it.

[rainkatt.livejournal.com]

Hee! I always edit out the second space after a period when I get a doc from someone else. I hates them. And also learned in a class way back in the dark ages that it was only for typewriters, and now that we're not using them anymore, they're not needed.

[teleute12.livejournal.com]

See, and I was recently informed that I was totally incorrect to be putting two spaces after a period, one space being The Thing To Do. This might be a regional variation, but I kinda suspect it just depends on who you talk to or what typing program you use.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

I was boggled to learn in college that not everyone had Two Spaces After The End of a Sentence drilled into them and was sad that teh intarnet smooshes spaces of any number down to one (more recently I learned about manually coding nonbreakingspaces and can make Semagic retain my spaces; I had joy). I had always thought the only time single space was in was newspapers were you're pressed for space, but I've heard mixed things about whether or not two spaces is still The Thing to Do and haven't actually sought out official sources, comfortable in my stubbornness (though I really should).

[dalmeny]

Having two spaces after a full stop is bollocks. A proper typesetting system handles the spacing for you.

[panloaf.livejournal.com]

It's mainly to do with typewriters, but also to do with the font used. Most fonts designed for computers are designed with using single spaces these days (particularly in the case of web-pages). The main reason for the double-space is simply readability. If you are providing copy for someone else to typeset, it is often preferred without the double-space, as they will account for the additional spacing. If you're simply typing a letter using a serif font, though, double-spacing after a full stop breaks up the text enough so the reader doesn't feel like they're trying to read a solid block of letters. Problem is, letter-writing "styles" can change with fashion in the same way as fonts.
Course, you can always tell those who complain when you use the RSA methods to sod off and learn short-hand...
(and in most sites I work on, if I'm using a small block font, I do still use the double-space rule because it breaks the text up nicely).