Chekhov's Mistress
For Everyone Except Paul Auster
A few years ago I was sitting in a room with an uptight fellow who had nothing interesting to say about something I had written so he defaultingly started in on typographical errors. You may know the sort, and I’m sure you can detect the bitterness in my tone. With all the condescension he could muster into one sentence, the prig informed me that I only had one space between my sentences when everyone knows that we’ve been putting two spaces between sentences since Gutenberg! Imagine my surprise.
I wasn’t in a position to correct anyone that day, but have been a crusader since then for the single space. You see, and forgive me if you know this already, when using a computer, we no longer need two spaces between our sentences. This is why: Typewriters (I can’t say anything about the Gutenberg press) use a mono-spaced font. That means that every single letter takes up the same amount of space, no matter if it’s an “I” or a “G.”
All the letters on a typewriter line up in columns because they are the same width:
L
U
D
D
I
T
E
The extra space between sentences (or any punctuation) makes it easier to see when the next sentence begins.
Fonts on the computer are proportional and don’t need the extra space, the “G” is wider than the I. The font used in the example above is Courier, which replicates the typewriter. This is probably not worth writing about because everyone knows but that one guy (he may not know yet), but now I have it off my chest.
p.s. Sorry Mr. Auster. Don’t be offended, but everyone knows how attached you are to your typewriter, so none of this applies to you.
Adapted from Robin Williams, The Mac Is Not a Typewriter (Berkeley: Peachpit Press, 1990)
Read widely, think well, and write often.
comments
I used to be a production editor for a science textbook company, and, don’t you know, our style guide said one space only between sentences.
yrs,
Stuart Greenhouse
– Stuart (08/11 at 06:31 PM)
See, it really is just that one guy that didn’t know! Still, I sleep better at night now.
– Chekhov's Mistress (08/12 at 09:50 AM)
Page 1 of 1 pages of comments
Creative Commons License Deed Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
You are free:
- to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
-
Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
-
No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.
- For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to this web page.
- Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.
- Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's moral rights.
This is a human-readable summary of the Legal Code (the full license):
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/legalcode
This site employs rank-denial and other anti-spam measures.
Your link here will do nothing for your rankings or traffic. Off-topic comments will be deleted.
Previous entry: Wise Men Have Fished Here: Homage to the Gotham Book Mart
About this Post
- Posted by: Bud Parr
- Date: August 09, 2004
- Filed Under:
Wise Men Fish Here: Literature
- Comments:2
- Links to this Post: Technorati
