Scott Crom
May 17th, 2007, 04:29 PM
Hi Dan,
OK--just remember that you asked for it!
I learned to type back in the first half of the previous century;
yes, I was in high school in the 1940s. We learned on those huge
old heavy old clunky old manual typewriters.
We learned not only where the letters are, but also the various
conventions then in force. In this case, a hyphen is made with a
single dash (no space on either side), as in "self-conscious."
An M dash--to set off side thoughts a little more strongly than
parenthesis would indicate--is made with two dashes, again no
spaces before or after. But I'm not sure I can think up a good
example.
In those days, however, it was also thought appropriate to follow
both a period and a semi-colon with two spaces. And in
typewritten material that looked OK, or so it seemed to us.
Some decades later, when I was moving to the computer keyboard, I
was told by several people who know more about this sort of thing
than I do, that two spaces following a period or semi-colon are
hopelessly old-fashioned. So with considerably mental effort, I
switched to the practice of using only one.
OK. As mentioned I do all my offline reading and writing using a
good old DOS text editor, with absolutely no fancy effects of
colors, fonts, etc. By now that editor has almost too many macros
to count--in fact the last time I added one or two, the compiler
threw up its hands and came close to resigning.
I run incoming mail through that macro-equipped text editor and
it replaces " - " with "--" and the like.
So by now I really have no idea what the original announcement of
a new word or round looks like when it's originally posted, since
whatever it was has been changed to fit my own idiosyncrasies (or
is that "idiocies"?).
I had no idea that my typography would affect the thread-matching
features at tapcis.com! I do apologize for making unnecessary
work for anybody.
Now, after all this, can you please tell me what particular
format for dashes, etc., would least discombobulate tapcis.com
and your own work (very much appreciated! on behalf of Dixonary?
Scott
OK--just remember that you asked for it!
I learned to type back in the first half of the previous century;
yes, I was in high school in the 1940s. We learned on those huge
old heavy old clunky old manual typewriters.
We learned not only where the letters are, but also the various
conventions then in force. In this case, a hyphen is made with a
single dash (no space on either side), as in "self-conscious."
An M dash--to set off side thoughts a little more strongly than
parenthesis would indicate--is made with two dashes, again no
spaces before or after. But I'm not sure I can think up a good
example.
In those days, however, it was also thought appropriate to follow
both a period and a semi-colon with two spaces. And in
typewritten material that looked OK, or so it seemed to us.
Some decades later, when I was moving to the computer keyboard, I
was told by several people who know more about this sort of thing
than I do, that two spaces following a period or semi-colon are
hopelessly old-fashioned. So with considerably mental effort, I
switched to the practice of using only one.
OK. As mentioned I do all my offline reading and writing using a
good old DOS text editor, with absolutely no fancy effects of
colors, fonts, etc. By now that editor has almost too many macros
to count--in fact the last time I added one or two, the compiler
threw up its hands and came close to resigning.
I run incoming mail through that macro-equipped text editor and
it replaces " - " with "--" and the like.
So by now I really have no idea what the original announcement of
a new word or round looks like when it's originally posted, since
whatever it was has been changed to fit my own idiosyncrasies (or
is that "idiocies"?).
I had no idea that my typography would affect the thread-matching
features at tapcis.com! I do apologize for making unnecessary
work for anybody.
Now, after all this, can you please tell me what particular
format for dashes, etc., would least discombobulate tapcis.com
and your own work (very much appreciated! on behalf of Dixonary?
Scott