how do you share your talent without seeming pompous? (1 Viewer)

[Micah Cohen]

Yeah, I failed tact, too. I didn't even need a pretty girl to distract me, either.

MC

 

[Greg_R]

The same problem comes up with home theaters. I've been brought over to see an "incredible HT" on a few occasions. When it turns out to be a Bose system driving a 32" tv via composite video, I smile, say something non-committal ('you must like this system', etc.) and keep my mouth shut.



However, I do fail to keep my mouth shut when I'm forced to watch fullscreen DVDs...

 

[Ricardo C]

Exactly, Greg

I'm usually pretty good at diplomacy. I usually say stuff like "Bose, huh? I love how they look!" (which is actually true, and gets me out of faux-complimenting the noise that comes out of them). But if they pop in a fullscreen DVD, I just have to find a way to sneak the OAR lecture somewhere in the conversation.

 

[Seth Paxton]

quote:Now, how come these posts are showing up all double spaced instead of just "single return"?

Because the PC is not a typewriter, as you yourself pointed out.

Personally I think there is a lot of sense to the 2 space rule and since you can still use fonts that attempt to recreate typewritten spacing I don't really see how electronic writing is more legible than typewritten. Maybe for bandwidth's sake its great to chop out any unneeded extra space, but why is spacing to seperate sentences wrong, but spacing or indentations to indicate a paragraph change right?

Sounds like a rather silly hang-up to me.


I took the time to look into it a bit more and found that Linotype machines would often jam if two space wedges were put in side by side, and this resulted in a publishing standard of one space. It was not done with the reader in mind at all.

Then there is the reasoning of page space. All those extra spaces increased the number of pages used, and that meant money.

In turn writers have seen such publishing and adopted it to their word processing ways, and then this common usage led it to be adopted by the MLA. None of this makes it an improvement for readers of monospaced fonts that lack distinguishing space widths that help mark the end of sentences. Standard screenwriting requires a monotype font emulating a standard typewritten page, for example.

The goal is to make your work easier to read. The same reason people would go nuts if all of what I have written here just ran together with no line spacing.

 

[Seth Paxton]

To your original point, I like the idea of just floating it out there with the understanding on your part made clear to him that the improvement might exist solely in your own brain.

I think a good writer is willing to hear things phrased or structured differently as long as there is no suggestion of "better" in a certain sense nor an obligation to actually make any of the suggested changes.

Certainly any writer who learned the art in college was taught to not only respect feedback but to thrive off of it.

 

[DaveGTP]

I never heard of the one space thing until now. Seriously, that is the standard? Not the way I was taught in mid-nineties on a computer.

 

[Citizen87645]

I learned about the single space thing about five years ago in a seminar on graphic design and layout.

 

[Ron-P]

Well, Mr. Socks, seeing as you don't

respond to PM's. I really don't care.

 

[Micah Cohen]

"PM"s?



OH! "Private Messages"?



Darn it! No one tole me! Gotta go find them.



Hang on. Don't give up on me yet!



MC

 

[Micah Cohen]

I had a nightmare last night that Tim saw this thread and now hates me.

MC

 

[Sami Kallio]

I learned typing in the eightees with a typewriter. I've never heard of double space until coming to the USA.



Micah, e-mail him your suggestion and tell you think it might sound better the way you put it. Most people are grateful if you give your input as sometimes when writing long articles you tend to get sucked into it and become blind to many things. You on the other hand are on the outside the text and can offer many improvements without making the writer feel like he did an error. Never say something should be this way when it's not about grammar, just that you feel it would be better expressed differently. I like to give ideas, not final sentences.